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Two new Mechatronics study programmes – in VGTU

Two new Mechatronics study programmes – in VGTU

June 28, 2014

Together with the growing importance of automation processes, which avoid routine or dangerous work of a human being, the importance of Mechatronics is also growing. Due to this, two new Mechatronics study programs are being established at VGTU. Master study program is called "Mechatronic systems" and joint study program, run together with Braunschweig University of Technology in Germany – "Mechatronics".

Young mechatronics specialists from Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) have already received recognition from business representatives: mechatronic climate control and energy costs‘ control system, created by the students, has already been installed in a business enterprise, hosting Web services. A remote mode system, capable of managing temperature, humidity, noise and power consumption costs, warns about possible changes in the premises, preventing losses in such a way, as well as allows to save electricity.

Mechatronic system, created by the postgraduates, in the real time reacts to the changes and informs maintenance staff about it or switches off the climate control device‘s settings itself. It is of the utmost importance in large servers‘ rooms, in which even a small change of a single indicator may disrupt work of thirty – sixty computers or damage them: after the increase of temperature, in ten-twenty minutes they start switching off automatically.

"Students‘ employment in business shows that we are already making our first independent steps towards the mechatronics science and technology. In order to achieve huge changes, we have to train creative professionals, able not only to modernise old systems, but also to create new ones. Currently mechatronics business is under active development abroad, but our potential in the development of this area in Lithuania is also great," – said Vytautas Bučinskas, Professor and Head of the Department of Mechatronics and Robotics at VGTU.

Future mechatronic specialists will deal with relevant scientific topics in mechatronics, carry out research and make experiments. They will investigate sensors, smart materials, integrated production systems and examine their application. The scientists of Braunschweig University of Technology, during our joint study programme, will also contribute to the training of students. For one year students will study at VGTU, and for the international experience will stay at the oldest technological University of Germany, which educated three Nobel Prize winners.

Refrigerator, washing machine, printer, etc., can be attributed to the mechatronic equipment. The latest mechatronic innovations are extremely widely used in medicine: smart systems monitor health condition of patients, they inject medication, invite assistance; medical robots are being used during heart operations in order to avoid heavy wounds and painful cuts. Scientists predict that soon the inventions of mechatronics and robotics will be widely used in our everyday life, such as autonomous vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, high climbing window cleaning robots. Currently, foreign researchers are very much focused on the investigation of self-governing and self-diagnosing mechatronic machinery, one of the examples being self-curing artificial muscles.