"Design Rules for Actuators in Active Mechanical Systems" deals with the formulation of model-based design rules to be used in the conception of optimized mechatronic and adaptronic systems. The book addresses the comparison of different actuator classes for given applications and offers answers to the following questions: What is the relationship between actuator geometry and primary output quantities? How scalable are actuators based on the same principle? How are energetic output quantities (work and power) related to mechanical load and geometry? How should actuators be designed and sized to obtain the best performance for the chosen actuator kind, and for a given application?

"Design Rules for Actuators in Active Mechanical Systems" will be of use to industry professionals, such as actuator and machine designers, as well as to researchers and students of mechanical engineering, mechatronics, and electrical engineering.

"Design Rules for Actuators in Active Mechanical Systems" deals with the formulation of model-based design rules to be used in the conception of optimized mechatronic and adaptronic systems. The book addresses the comparison of different actuator classes for given applications and offers answers to the following questions: What is the relationship between actuator geometry and primary output quantities? How scalable are actuators based on the same principle? How are energetic output quantities (work and power) related to mechanical load and geometry? How should actuators be designed and sized to obtain the best performance for the chosen actuator kind, and for a given application? "Design Rules for Actuators in Active Mechanical Systems" will be of use to industry professionals, such as actuator and machine designers, as well as to researchers and students of mechanical engineering, mechatronics, and electrical engineering.

Piezoelectric actuators are proving to be a reliable solution for many engineering applications, ranging from micro-positioning (machine tools, optic devices or modern microscopes) to active control of structures. The main motivation of this work is to delve into models to represent the hysteretic behavior of piezoelectric actuators in order to apply them to the conception of controllers for such hysteretic systems. A general study of piezoelectric actuators is performed to later deal with the modeling of such actuators. Due to the high non-linear behavior observed, the problem of identifying and modeling the actuator requires a hysteresis model. The Bouc-Wen model has been chosen and investigations to identify its parameters and to validate the model have been undertaken. Once the system has been identified, a linear controller has been designed and implemented in a real platform, employing a Digital Signal Processor.