Mechatronics for the design of human-oriented machines

Abstract

One of the topics of mechatronics is the design of "intelligent" machines, thus making them different from previous ones and allowing more sophisticated cooperation between humans and machines. Such machines are expected to emulate human skills and to communicate and interact with their human users on an appropriate level. The requirements for such human-oriented machines and the implications on their design will be discussed here. A number of examples from actual Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) research, ranging from nanomanipulation tasks and medical devices to a mobile service robot, demonstrate the application of the concept.