multi-string slide guitar robot

Mechatronic music is a complex and exciting interdisciplinary field. By incorporating knowledge and skills in electronics, mechanics, and computing, it challenges artists to create one-of-a-kind musical devices. Although mechatronic music benefits considerably from recent technological developments, it is enriched by a long history of mechanical instruments. In this chapter, we establish a context for our research by reviewing noteworthy mechatronic systems and the artists that conceived them. Furthermore, we introduce mechatronic chordophones—the subset of mechatronic instruments that is the focus of this thesis—and we discuss their structure and various design strategies to understand how they work.