About Mechatronik

Mechatronik

Mechatronik is a German-language trade media brand for mechatronics and drive technology, published in Haar near Munich. As part of the WEKA Fachmedien portfolio — the electronics and automation media house behind Markt&Technik, Elektronik, and the elektroniknet.de platform — it addresses engineers and decision-makers who develop machines and systems in which mechanics, electronics, and software work together. The brand's coverage centers on drive technology, motion control, sensor and actuator systems, robotics, and the engineering methods of mechatronic design. In the German trade press, where automation titles address the factory floor and electronics titles address the circuit board, Mechatronik occupies the interface between them: the interdisciplinary discipline, coined as a term in Japan in 1969, that has become a key technology of the twenty-first century.

Overview

Mechatronik presents itself as the specialist medium for the interdisciplinary interaction of mechanical, electronic, and information-technology systems. Its editorial program covers drive technology in its full breadth — electric drives, motion control, and the power electronics that feed them — alongside sensor technology, actuator systems, control and regulation technology, robotics, and embedded systems for mechatronic applications. The audience is defined by engineering function: development engineers, design engineers, and technical managers in mechanical engineering, automation, automotive supply, and robotics.

The readership works at the point where classical mechanical concepts are advanced through the use of electronics and software: electronic gear selectors replacing mechanical linkages, active steering networked with sensors and stability systems, decentralized drive architectures that move control electronics from the cabinet into the robot joint. The brand's content translates this engineering reality into practice-oriented reporting — how new drive generations simplify robot design, how Gallium-nitride transistors raise the efficiency of power stages above ninety-nine percent, how single-pair Ethernet upgrades wired communication in drive systems.

The brand operates within the WEKA Fachmedien media network in Haar, where nearly thirty specialist editors serve the electronics titles and the elektroniknet.de platform. This integration gives Mechatronik access to one of the largest electronics editorial teams in the German-language trade press and to the cross-media infrastructure — print, online, newsletters, conferences — of the WEKA electronics portfolio, which since January 2025 has belonged to the NürnbergMesse group.

History

The Mechatronik brand emerged from the WEKA Fachmedien publishing program as the dedicated medium for a discipline that had outgrown its status as a buzzword. The term "mechatronics" itself originated in Japan in 1969 as an intentionally imprecise coinage; by the turn of the millennium it denoted, through usage, the concepts that enable the advancement of classical mechanical designs through electronics and software — a key technology whose innovation pace increasingly drives mechanical engineering. WEKA Fachmedien, already the publisher of the electronics weekly Markt&Technik and the monthly Elektronik, created Mechatronik as the title that would serve the engineers working at this disciplinary interface.

The brand's development ran parallel to the mechatronization of German industry: the spread of servo drives and motion control in mechanical engineering, the networking of drives with sensors and vehicle-stability systems in automotive engineering, the rise of robotics, and the software-driven optimization of mechanical behavior that today accounts for the majority of improvement potential in the automobile. The editorial program tracked these shifts — from the mechanics-electronics interface of the early years to the software-defined, networked drive systems of the present, where decentralized architectures, functional safety, and energy efficiency dominate the engineering agenda.

With the acquisition of WEKA Fachmedien by NürnbergMesse, effective January 2025, the Mechatronik brand became part of a media and trade-fair group that has organized the embedded world trade fair together with WEKA Fachmedien for more than twenty years. The brand's content universe continues to be served from the Haar editorial offices within the elektroniknet.de platform structure.

Coverage and Content

The editorial coverage of Mechatronik follows the components and methods of mechatronic systems. Drive technology is the standing core: electric motors and drives, power electronics, motion control, and the mechanical transmission elements — gears, spindles, linear systems — through which drives act on the machine. Sensor technology and actuator systems form the second pillar: the sensors that report the state of the mechanics — speed, acceleration, position — to the electronics, and the actuators through which the electronics influence mechanical behavior.

Control and regulation technology, functional safety, and the software that increasingly determines electronic function complete the technology coverage. A mechatronic system, in the brand's engineering definition, always consists of the mechanics, the sensor systems, the electronics, and the software that governs them — and the editorial program addresses all four, including the methodological challenge they pose: seasoned designers schooled in classical construction methodology meeting software developers with agile methods, and product life cycles of five to seven years in mechanical engineering colliding with the half-year rhythms of consumer electronics.

Application reporting covers the industries where mechatronics decides competitiveness: mechanical and plant engineering, robotics, automotive and commercial-vehicle technology, and increasingly medical technology and e-mobility. Market and company news, product reports, and technology analyses round out the mix, with the engineering-practice orientation of the German Fachpresse as the consistent editorial standard.

Organization and Ownership

Mechatronik is published by WEKA Fachmedien GmbH, based in Haar near Munich. The company describes itself as a leading provider of cross-media brands for the growth markets of electronics, automation, energy technology, and ICT, with a portfolio that includes Markt&Technik, Elektronik, DESIGN&ELEKTRONIK, Computer&AUTOMATION, CRN, and funkschau, plus the online platform elektroniknet.de. Effective January 2025, WEKA Fachmedien was acquired by the NürnbergMesse Group from its previous owner Paragon Partners; NürnbergMesse and WEKA Fachmedien had already cooperated for more than two decades on the embedded world trade fair, the world's leading exhibition for embedded electronics systems.

The editorial team works from the Haar offices, where the publisher's electronics editorial staff — described as the largest of its kind, with nearly thirty specialist editors — serves the print titles and the elektroniknet.de platform. Beyond publishing, WEKA Fachmedien organizes national and international B2B conferences, trade conventions, forums, and seminars on professional electronics and ICT topics, giving the Mechatronik brand access to the group's event infrastructure.

Circulation and readership figures for the current year are published in the publisher's media data for advertising customers; precise numbers are not publicly confirmed in freely available sources. The commercial model follows the standard B2B media pattern of the group: print and online advertising, content-marketing formats, and event sponsorships within the electronics and automation media network.

Digital Presence

The digital home of the brand is mechatronik.de, embedded in the elektroniknet.de platform universe of WEKA Fachmedien. The portal publishes news, product reports, and specialist articles on mechatronics and drive technology on a rolling basis, organized within the platform's topic structure that serves electronics decision-makers in development, purchasing, and management. Since 1998, elektroniknet.de has reported around the clock on trends, products, and company news from the electronics world, and the Mechatronik channel draws on this continuous news flow.

The brand's digital formats are integrated with the group's newsletter, e-paper, and conference offerings: specialist editors produce content for multiple channels from the Haar newsroom, and the publisher's B2B conferences and seminars on electronics and automation topics extend the brand into physical formats. The NürnbergMesse ownership adds the trade-fair dimension — embedded world in Nuremberg and the electronica in Munich — to the digital ecosystem in which the Mechatronik content circulates, positioning the brand at the intersection of media, events, and the engineering community it serves.