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1.INTRODUCTIONMulti- and inter-disciplinarity are often the key to success in the complex landscape of nowadays science & technology. The early introduction of mechatronics [1] by the Japanese has been a good demonstration of this principle. It integrated mechanics, electronics and IT in a system that has proven indeed more than the sum of its components. The next step towards this integration was done by adding optics to this equation and thus optomechatronics [2] was born. While the limit between the various combinations of these domains is not always clearly set, and some topics (devices, systems and methods) do cross the lines and they can be found (and are claimed) in optics, optomechanics, optoelectronics, by example – or under the larger umbrella of Photonics – optomechatronics is maybe the most comprehensive way of defining some R&D directions that include topics such as those pointed out in Fig. 1. Figure 1.Research directions on devices in the 3OM Optomechatronics Group (with selected recent publications).  This is why, when establishing a new multidisciplinary group with optics as one of its main components at a young Higher Education institution, the “Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad - UAVA (founded in 1991 on the bases of an Engineering College founded in 1972), the name of 3OM Optomechatronics Group was chosen [3]. The “3OM” term stands for Optomechatronics, Optical Metrology, and Optics & Mechanics to account for the multiple directions of research of the group when it was founded, in 2008, by Prof. Duma, PI of an IDEAS Grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research (CNDI-UEFISCDI) [4]. This paper will present the steps of establishing this group in a young university which had no previous tradition in Optics or in related fields, in a economy in transition - with the inherent low funding for R&D activities despite the 2007 integration of the country in the European Union (EU). To these conditions an addition was made by the negative impact that the economic crisis in Europe had on the R&D system during the last years. We will also present briefly the related training activities in research and educational implementations in the lectures and labs of the faculties involved – as a direct consequence of the experience gained and of the avenues opened by the R&D activities of the Group. 2.RESEARCH ACTIVITY: DIRECTIONS AND RESULTSFigure 1 presents an overview of the main directions of research in the 3OM Optomechatronics Group established in 2008 at the Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad. Our activity is divided in two broad directions, referring to optomechatronic devices and systems. Thus, three main types of optomechatronic devices are pointed out in Fig. 1:
As one of the essential aspects when establishing a research group in Engineering or Applied Physics is related to raising the necessary funding to develop a laboratory to carry on experimental works, in Table 1 we present the research grants carried on so far in the 5 years since the group was founded. Table 1.Research Grants coordinated by the 3OM Optomechatronics Group (activity in the last 5 years).
There are several other grants that we have participated to individually, but these are those on which the group was founded. The Laboratory of Optomechatronics, situated in the School of Engineering of the UAVA, was made on the first, IDEAS grant and is being completed on the following major one – of PARTNERSHIPS. To achieve this, most of the IDEAS Grant (about 60%) was dedicated for equipments, and very few to salaries; some of the necessary mobility funding was completed by the Fulbright Grant that was carried on in the meanwhile. A major issue that we had to face was the impact of the economic crisis that affected Eastern Europe and Romania in particular since 2009. This has led to a severe decrease of the funding for all research grants, and has also led to the decrease of our first grant (like of all similar Romanian grants) from 370 to 100 k€. Such financial issues still exist, although the situation improved significantly since then. This effort to raise funding continues in our group, to support PG students, especially, but also to complete the lab and to provide mobilities for training and participation at conferences – which is of course something that any group is doing. The other directions of research of the 3OM Group, in optical systems this time will be presented in Section 4, in relationship with the work of the different PG and UG students in our group – but also in the various groups that we are collaborating with (Table 2). These directions have only been pointed out in Fig. 1, as following those on optomechatronic devices presented previously. Table 2.Collaborative institutions with the 3OM Optomechatronics Group
3.THE 3OM OPTOMECHATRONICS GROUP. ENVIRONMENT AND COLLABORATIONSIn Table 2 we present our main collaborative links that are active at present, both at national and at international level. To these institution there are often added, to our mutual benefit, the institutions (universities or companies) these collaborators work with as well – so the network is further enhanced – at least occasionally and on different specific topics. We present in [46] this aspect, of our collaborative researches, and of our efforts to establish Photonics Pole in Western Romania, in the future metropolitan area Arad-Timisoara (planned to unite the two major cities in Western Romania, situated less than 50 km apart). 4.TRAINING ACTIVITY WITH POSTGRADUATE STUDENTSThe research directions of the 3OM Group in optical systems, approached in the group, but mainly in the different collaborations pointed out in Table 2, are:
5.TRANSLATION OF THE RESEARCH RESULTS IN THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ CURRICULAA detailed study of our strategy of moving from classical teaching to hands-on-experiments and to research-oriented teaching – even for undergrads y has been presented in detail in [60]. A brief presentation of our translation of the experience gained through research in the curricula of UG students has also been made in [61], while some aspects related to the training of PGs in the various groups involved in our current Partnership Project was described in [62]. An overview of the way the implementation of different research topics in the curricula of UG is made in Table 3. While a major issue is the fact that an Optics program could not so far have started in our university, we are trying to do the best with Mechanical Engineering students, and especially with Electrical Engineering students, as the latter have a multitude of topics that include optoelectronics and photonics aspects. Table 3.Implementation of several research topics in the curricula of the Mechanical & Electrical Engineering undergraduate students at UAVArad.
6.CONCLUSIONSThe paper completes a brief presentation of the steps we have taken iin order to establish an Optomechatronics Group in a young university – with only 20 years of tradition – in the most Westen city of Romania, herself the most Eastern country of the European Union. We have only pointed out a few of the issues we had, and insisted on the necessary steps we had to make in order to reach a level at which the group can start ot make steps towards becoming a partner for the international community. We briefly presented our main directions of research – both in devices and systems, the latter with a stress on industrial applications and on bimedical imaging. Training of PG and modern methods of teaching of UGs (with an accent on discovery through research) were also highlighted, as one of our main concerns. Another aspect that is in our attention is related to collaborative links, inter- and multi-disciplinary, as well as to the possibility to transfer of the results of research into industry (and thus to the society). The collaborative link with two SMEs, one industrial and the other one specialized in biomedical analyses (Table 2), has been so far our approach in achieving this. Future work implies both the enhancement of our research (with the effort to achieving results of interest, but also to publish in high impact journals) and of our collaborations to follow the path towards establishing the planned Photonics Pole in Western Romania [46]. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThis work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNDI–UEFISCDI project number PN-II-PT-PCCA-2011-3.2-1682. REFERENCESKarnopp, D. C., Margolis, D. L., and Rosenberg, R. C., System Dynamics: Modeling and Simulation of Mechatronic Systems, 4thWiley(2006). Google Scholar
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