Undergraduate Mechatronics Couse Design Project

There is a real need to educate our engineering students in the application of electronics, controls, mechanics, and software; this multidisciplinary initiative has led to the creation of an undergraduate Mechatronics courses at the United States Military Academy (USMA) and many other universities around the world.The focus of these courses is to emphasize application and hands on laboratory work in general, and design projects in particular.This paper presents an example of an open-ended autonomous unmanned ground vehicle (AUGV) project that has been developed in support of the undergraduate mechatronics course at USMA.This is a one-semester course that culminates in a project that occupies the student's in class, laboratory, and at home assignments for the last five weeks of the quarter.The paper will present the design, development and pedagogy of the project.