Importance of Mechatronics in Maritime Education

Education and training of technical staff for the new generation technological equipment has a vital importance for developing countries in order to maintain sustainable development and keep up with new generation technologies. Mechatronics the synergistic combination of mechanical, electronic and software engineering from an engineering perspective to serve the purposes of controlling advanced hybrid systems is a product of new generation technology which can be given as a sample to this phenomenon. Recent marine engines are combination of heavy industry with high technology. Nowadays, ships are built in full automation and equipped with computer controlled mechatronics systems. However, finding qualified officer and engineers who can operate, maintain, control and repair when it is required such full automatic systems with knowledge of a new generation system became a serious issue. Due to importance of this fact STCW Manila amendment has new training and certification requirements for electro-technical officers. In this paper, Mechatronics applications on ship are introduced, importance of it highlighted and a new syllabus is proposed for the training of marine engineers to be nurtured with mechatronics knowledge as it is required.