Preparing for the next century: the state of mechatronics education

The paper is based on a series of special events focusing on mechatronics education at the 1999 DEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics. The series consisted of two invited-paper sessions on "Teaching of Mechatronics" and a conference-wide roundtable discussion concerned with "Infrastructure for Mechatronics Education." In the paper, a framework is presented for comparing various aspects of mechatronics courses based on these events.