Present State and Future Developments in Mechatronics and it's Influence on Fluid Power Systems

This paper tries to sketch the outlines for the future of : Fluid Power Control under the influence of the rapid advances of computer hardware and software technologies. The influences, when they improve the performance of fluid power, are seen as a synergetic integration of fluid power with electronics, software and mechanics.

This synergetic integration is often called Mechatronics.The topic which is rather widespread will be treated in three sections: I) General overview of mechatronics and fluid power. In this section the general trends of mechatronics in fluid power is considered by relating trends in the neighbouring fields of software and electronic hardware to fluid power developments.

II) Mechatronic case stories from IKS In this section the results of a conceptual design study : "Design of a frequency converter based hydraulic power supply" is presented together with a more detailed study of the control of a two link hydraulic robot. The first example is dealing with possible changes in power supply design practice caused by the development in frequency converter techniques.

The second is an example of rapid hydraulic controller design using a modern signal processor facility. II) Strategies and associated actions for IKS within fluid power In this section the plans for IKS within fluid power is discussed.