Engineering with Mechatronics Systems

If you're building the future, you need to know how to protect it. You’ll explore cyber incidents and threats, digital defences, and secure system design — all through the lens of modern engineering and AI.

You’ll learn how attackers think, what makes systems vulnerable, and how to build security in from the basics. Using professional tools, you’ll investigate real-world threats and secure AI-integrated systems.

Through hands-on exercises, simulations, and projects, you’ll analyse attacks and create systems that can stand up to them. Alongside the technical work, you’ll tackle the ethical and legal challenges that come with protecting data and people.

It’s about more than just code - it’s about making smart systems safe for the real world.

Understand how engineering systems communicate is crucial to unleashing the power of AI. You’ll dive into the essentials of networking: protocols, architecture, data transmission, and wireless systems.

You’ll build and test communication setups that support smart technologies like sensor networks and automated systems. Using appropriate tools, you’ll simulate networks, trace data flow, and troubleshoot real-world issues.

You’ll also examine how to secure, scale, and optimise these systems, while tackling the ethical and legal challenges of connected technologies.

This is about building the invisible systems that keep intelligent technologies running and making sure they run right.

Ready to turn messy data into smart decisions? Here, you’ll take on the role of a data detective diving into real industrial data to uncover insights, spot patterns, and build intelligent tools that work.

You’ll get to grips with cleaning and shaping raw data so it tells a clear visual story. Then you’ll explore machine learning in action — training models, testing outcomes, and figuring out how systems can learn and improve. It’s all about building practical skills through hands-on tasks and real-world case studies.

You'll explore the full spectrum of machine learning, from visualising complex data with tools like heatmaps and correlation plots, to training intelligent algorithms that learn from data, recognise patterns, and predict future behaviour with real-world impact. And it’s not just about the tech — you’ll also tackle the big questions around ethics, sustainability, bias, and data privacy. Just because a system can make an informed decision, doesn’t mean it should.

By the end, you’ll be able to take an industrial dataset, turn it into a story, and pitch your findings with clarity and confidence. You'll also learn from the past using real examples of where AI failed - analysing what went wrong, and how it could've been avoided.

It’s fast-paced, relevant, and right at the intersection of data, technology, and impact.

Ecological Structures gives you an opportunity to work like a professional engineer, analysing, testing, and pitching solutions to a real-world challenge. You’ll take on the role of a consultancy team, tackling a project brief that pulls together structural analysis, thermodynamics, and environmental impact. Think things like Electric Vehicle (EV) chassis design or modular building systems - the technology that shapes tomorrow’s world.

You’ll get hands-on with advanced tools like finite element analysis (FEA) to test how your structure performs under stress and explore how heat flows through your design. Then you’ll dig deep into the sustainability side, using Life Cycle Assessment to weigh up the impact of your materials and choices from start to finish.

This isn’t just about getting the maths right — though you’ll do that too. It’s about thinking smart, solving complex problems, and finding ways to make your design adaptable, efficient, effective, and environmentally responsible. Every week you’ll build your skills through focused sessions and use them straight away on your project. It’s collaborative, technical, and built to give you the experience that matters.

This is where your ideas meet action. You’ll immerse yourself in a team project with a real-world brief designing a product, system, or process that solves a genuine challenge. It’s not just about what you build it’s how you plan, research, test, and deliver something that works.

You’ll dig into how research fuels innovation. That means learning how to ask the right questions, gather evidence, and build a strong case for your solution. You'll plan your project, manage change, deal with setbacks, and learn how to keep things moving when everything gets messy, just like in real engineering.

Every decision you make will need backing whether it’s technical, ethical, environmental or commercial. You’ll use design thinking, experiment with prototypes, and learn how to turn a great concept into something real. Alongside your team project, you’ll also develop your own proposal for a new idea that could be taken to market. It’s your chance to explore what matters to you and how you’d bring it to life.

You’ll come away with experience in research, leadership, business modelling, and creative problem-solving. By the end, you won’t just be talking about innovation, you’ll be driving it.

Step into the future of manufacturing. Design and evaluate intelligent factory systems that use AI, data analytics, and real-time monitoring to boost productivity, quality and sustainability.

You’ll explore cutting-edge technologies like the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), cyber-physical systems, machine learning, smart sensors and digital twins and build solutions that adapt, learn, and optimise in real time.

This is all about building responsive, data-driven factories that can think for themselves and making sure they’re safe, efficient and future-ready.

Design and build intelligent systems that connect devices, networks, and data in real time to transform industrial processes. You'll explore how the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is used in smart factories, robotics, and automation — integrating sensors, actuators, and AI to create scalable, secure, and efficient solutions.

You'll cover essential topics like edge and cloud computing, data acquisition, digital twins, communication protocols, and cybersecurity. Using hardware and software, you’ll develop IIoT systems capable of real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and adaptive control.

Giving you the skills to deliver smart, connected systems that improve performance and decision-making all while tackling the ethical and societal questions that come with deploying large-scale digital infrastructure.

You’ll learn how to design and implement advanced manufacturing systems using the latest digital tools. You’ll explore how CAD/CAM integration, additive manufacturing, simulation and digital twins come together to create smarter, more efficient production processes.

You’ll use digital tools to develop solutions that support real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and data-driven optimisation. The focus is on building systems that are adaptable, scalable, and aligned with Industry 4.0 standards.

This is about using technology to improve how things are made, faster, cleaner, smarter.

Develop the tools to build intelligent systems that control, communicate and adapt in real time. You’ll explore how embedded systems and distributed networks power smart manufacturing, automation, robotics and IoT.

You’ll work with microcontrollers, real-time operating systems, and edge computing, using platforms like Arduino and Raspberry Pi. From interfacing sensors to integrating AI for improved performance and autonomy, you'll learn how to create responsive, scalable and efficient systems.

Preparing you to engineer the brains and networks behind tomorrow’s smart technologies, responsibly and effectively.

Equipping you to design, control, and evaluate intelligent robotic systems for real-world engineering applications. You’ll work with core robotics principles like kinematics, dynamics, control systems, and motion planning then apply AI techniques to boost perception, decision-making and autonomy.

You’ll use digital tools to build and simulate robotic systems that can move, sense, adapt, and interact. From industrial arms to mobile robots, you’ll learn to design machines that work efficiently, safely and intelligently in dynamic environments.

This is about building the next generation of robotic systems, smart, adaptable, and ready for Industry 4.0.

This is your chance to take the lead. You’ll design, manage, and deliver a project of your own something rooted in your degree, relevant to industry, and shaped by your interests.

You’ll be in charge from start to finish defining the problem, planning your approach, applying technical skills, and producing a full written report. It’s a deep dive into real engineering work guided by a supervisor but driven by you.

Expect to develop skills in everything from research, planning, development to hands-on technical skills depending on your project. You’ll meet with your supervisor at key checkpoints to review progress, get feedback, and make sure your project stays on track.

Culminating with a final report and a viva, where you’ll present your work and defend your decisions. Along the way, you’ll build serious skills in project management, evaluation, communication, and independent problem-solving, all documented in your portfolio.

It’s your final-year project and your biggest opportunity to show what you’re capable of.