ABSTRACT
Automobiles have evolved a lot over the last century. While the fi rst cars made were modeled after horse-drawn carriages and were purely mechanical devices, the modern-day automobile is a marvel of complex interdisciplinary engineering. As customers have demanded more from vehicles, designers have used newer and newer technology to meet the needs in the most effi cient manner possible. As a result, many systems and subsystems in today’s car are mechatronic in nature. While the core of the automobile is still a mechanical device consisting of a power source connected to a drive train that helps take the vehicle down the road, most controls and so-called “smart” features are achieved through the use of microcontrollers, smart algorithms, and sensors and actuators. The number of sensors used in a modern vehicles has increased exponentially over the last 20 years. Many of the subsystems, such as steering, braking, and so forth, are being replaced by “by-wire” systems. Even the power source, the traditional internal combustion engine, is being replaced by hybrid architectures consisting of a combination of electric motors, fuel cells, and engines. Power sharing among these sources is dynamically controlled for optimal performance through highly refi ned algorithms residing on microchips that are implanted on subsystems within the automobile. The automobile of today is a quickly evolving system, but its evolution is clearly moving from a purely mechanical device to an intricate mechatronic device.
