MEng Mechatronic Engineering / Course details

Switch on your career in mechatronic engineering at Manchester, a university with a prestigious engineering history - and a bright focus on the future. Mechatronics, the marriage of mechanical engineering with smart electronics, is vital to subjects including industrial automation and robotics.

To interact with an object, a mechatronic system must know where the object is, be able to move the object and place it in the required new position. The electronics require information from sensors that can detect position, orientation, and visual or audio signals. The electrical inputs from the sensors have to be interpreted and the appropriate signals sent out to the actuators to perform the required operation.

A good understanding of feedback control is also required to make changes in the system from one steady position to another, without oscillations or unpredictable movements. In this course you will learn the techniques necessary for the design and implementation of such intelligent mechatronic systems.

In the final year you will also complete a team project directly funded by industry or inspired by industrial needs. Past projects have included developing an instrumented training wheelchair for para-athletes, creating a new core infrastructure for a robot orchestra, and developing a cyber-secure electricity management system in smart cities.

• You will learn robotics, mechatronics, and autonomous system technology and how to incorporate an electronics nervous system into other engineering systems and devices.
• We will provide ample opportunity for practical application and project work. These are strong themes throughout our course.
• You will be taught by academics working on the cutting-edge of research, helping to solve the world's biggest challenges.
• In the final year you will undertake a team project either directly funded by industry or based on industrial needs.

Industry-inspired team project

Final year students will undertake a team project that is either directly funded by industry or inspired by industrial needs - providing the experience and skills you need before taking your next career step.

Regular, close support

During the first year, you will be supported by unit-specific tutors, who hold weekly small-group sessions to discuss questions related to your course. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to engage with  our award-winning Peer Assisted Study Session scheme  which allows you to interact with 2nd and 3rd Year students. You will also be assigned an Academic Advisor, who will offer you support in terms of your academic progression and career development. 

Excellent facilities

We're getting ready to move into a £400m Manchester Engineering Campus Development.  Learn more

With access to an extensive range of leading facilities , you will get hands-on with industry-standard equipment - improving your knowledge and skills, and preparing you for work post-graduation. Our flagship facilities include the High Voltage Lab and Photon Science Institute .

Options and flexibility

The first three semesters of our undergraduate courses share the same content. This gives you the opportunity to transfer between electrical and electronic, electronic and mechatronic engineering up until halfway through your second year. 

In your first year of study there is approximately a 50:50 split between your contact time and independent study; about the same as when studying for A-levels.

In subsequent years this split changes to a greater amount of independent learning, with the split being approximately 30:70 in the third year and 20:80 in the fourth. This does not mean that less help is available; our staff are here to help.

Contact time could be in a lecture, example class, tutorial, laboratory class and sometimes may be online (email/e-learning/web blog etc). All of these activities enable you to interact with us to ensure you have the best possible learning experience.

The course contains strong practical elements: a year-long practical build project of an electronic device in Year 1, a year-long practical build project of an autonomous embedded system in Year 2, and a year-long practical research project in Year 3 and an industrially related year-long engineering team project in Year 4.

Assessment of most course units is by examination combined with an element of course work, such as marked laboratory work or marked examples. Substantial projects are assessed by written reports, presentations and demonstrations.

Find out what it's like to study at Manchester by visiting the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering blog .

Our strong, ever-growing links with industry not only help to inform our courses, but also boost our excellent teaching and research facilities. These include:

• National Instruments Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory
• High Voltage Lab
• Manchester Engineering Campus
• Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre
• Oxford Instruments VG Semicon Molecular Beam Epitaxy facility
• National Graphene Institute
• Dalton Nuclear Institute

The University of Manchester also offers extensive library and online services , helping you get the most out of your studies.

Manchester's Engineering Campus Development, MECD. 

Get ready to collaborate, create and innovate in a brand-new £400m purpose-built building which will allow you, our future engineers and material scientists, to come together and make your mark on the world. The Manchester Engineering Campus Development (MECD) will officially open from September 2022 and will include hundreds of flexible teaching and learning spaces with unrivalled world-class research facilities - whatever your inspiration, with MECD the possibilities are endless.   

Learn more