Reinventing Mechatronics: Proceedings of Mechatronics 2018

Digitalization changes the world calling also for major adjustments of industrial branches. Networking is an essential feature of this change. Prominent initiatives such as the “Internet of Things” or “Factories of the Future” are evident results thereof and stimulate innovations and product improvement. Most of these concepts include mechatronic systems as indispensable parts. They request strong mutual interaction between these systems and with adjacent (digital, human, etc.) environments. Following nature’s example, we propose to bring mechatronic systems into mutual, beneficial interrelations with their interacting partners, which can be such diverse things as a press brake, a digital twin or a human user. This partnership resembles an “organism” for which symbiosis may serve as a principle that will open new potential benefits for complex technical systems.