As demand has increased for new types of equipment that are more suited to the ever-evolving world of industry, demand for both new and traditional types of actuators has soared. From automotive and aeronautical to biomedical and robotics, engineers are constantly developing actuating devices that are adapted to their particular needs in their particular field, and actuators are used in almost every field of engineering that there is. This volume not only lays out the fundamentals of actuators, such as how they operate, the different kinds, and their various applications, but it also informs the engineer or student about the new actuators that are being developed and the state-of-the-art of actuators. Edited and written by highly experienced and well-respected engineers with a deep understanding of their subject, there is no other volume on actuators that is more current or comprehensive. Whether as a guide for the latest innovations in actuators, a refresher reference work for the veteran engineer, or an introductory text for the engineering student, this is a must-have for any engineer's or university's library. Covering the theory and the practical applications, this breakthrough volume is a "one stop shop" for any engineer or student interested in actuators.

The book promotes new research results in the field of modern actuators and their applications. New coverage of dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators, polymeric microgripper based on the cascaded V-shaped electrothermal actuators, ionic polymer actuators, wideband actuators and energy harvesters, electromagnetic actuators and shape memory alloy actuators are comprehended. The book is structured in four sections: design, fabrication and simulation; control systems; medical applications and fault detection. Seven chapters are published following a rigorous selection process. In the first section, a study carried out to investigate experimentally and by numerical simulations a microscale plasma actuator; the design, fabrication, numerical simulations, and experimental investigations of a polymeric microgripper designed using the cascaded V-shaped electrothermal actuators; a review of the development of ionic polymer actuator with introduction of two kinds of typical polymer actuators - ionic polymer-metal composites and bucky gel actuator - with their basic principle and fabrication process and typical applications and a methodology of designing and testing wideband actuators and energy harvesters, treated as one mechanical resonator, with a discussion on shock harvester, resonant harvester and energy transmission system, are presented. The second section has a chapter dedicated to modeling, system identification and control of electromagnetic actuators with main focus on the actuators used in magnetic levitation, in fuel injection systems and in variable valve timing. The third section presents a study focused on quantifying the decline in tactile sensation associated with diabetic neuropathy and developed a measurement device that used a thin-shaped memory alloy wire as the actuator. The fourth section includes a chapter presenting a two-level fault diagnosis and root-cause analysis scheme for a class of interconnected invertible dynamic systems, which aims at detecting and identifying actuator fault and causes.

Flexoelectricity is the ability of materials to generate a voltage when they are bent or, conversely, to bend under voltage. Flexoelectricity can be present in all materials; however, the magnitude of the flexoelectric coefficients is so small that flexoelectricity is virtually imperceptible on the human scale. The book's objective is to look at the flexoelectric effect in ceramics for various applications point of view such as sensor, actuator and energy harvesting etc. It briefly discusses the flexoelectric effect theories and models with the latest development in this field. Several methods are discussed to increase the flexoelectric effect in ferroelectric and other ceramics. It focused on the latest development in various possible applications such as flexopyroelectric, flexocaloric and nano energy generators. Apart from these, it will also discuss the inverse flexoelectric effect, flexoelectric effect in 2D materials, ambiguities and controversies in this field. This book resolved many questions related to flexoelectricity and made significant discoveries with profound implications beyond flexoelectricity, in such diverse areas as caloric or MEMS devices, etc. It covers the most recent breakthroughs in nano-generator, composite-based ceramics to maximize energy harvesting and storage. Therefore, this book will be handy for a researcher working in this direction of ceramics and can be a reference book for allied specializations. It will open a new approach to using the flexoelectric effect in various ceramics and varieties of applications. - Provides an in-depth study of the flexoelectric effect of a broad range of ceramic materials - It updates the state of art progress that has been done in the area of flexoelectric-based energy harvesting via nano-generator or nanocomposites of ceramics - Provides most recent advancement in the area of lead-free, lead-based ceramics, 2D material, flexocaloric and flexopyroelectric applications - The inverse flexoelectric effect is discussed in detail, which helps newcomers and expert researchers, scientists, and engineers working in this field - Includes an evaluation of ambiguities and controversies about the flexoelectric effect

This book contains the proceedings of a conference held at the Manchester Business School on 15-16 July 1996. It covers the topics of fundamental materials studies and the design and fabrication of prototype devices, and represents a cross section of the UK activity in sensors and actuators.

Smart Materials-Based Actuators at the Micro/Nano-Scale: Characterization, Control, and Applications gives a state of the art of emerging techniques to the characterization and control of actuators based on smart materials working at the micro/nano scale. The book aims to characterize some commonly used structures based on piezoelectric and electroactive polymeric actuators and also focuses on various and emerging techniques employed to control them. This book also includes two of the most emerging topics and applications: nanorobotics and cells micro/nano-manipulation.

This comprehensive handbook gives a fully updated guide to lasers and laser technologies, including the complete range of their technical applications. The first volume outlines the fundamental components of lasers, their properties, and working principles. Key Features: • Offers a complete update of the original, bestselling work, including many brand-new chapters. • Deepens the introduction to fundamentals, from laser design and fabrication to host matrices for solid-state lasers, energy level diagrams, hosting materials, dopant energy levels, and lasers based on nonlinear effects. • Covers new laser types, including quantum cascade lasers, silicon-based lasers, titanium sapphire lasers, terahertz lasers, bismuth-doped fiber lasers, and diode-pumped alkali lasers. • Discusses the latest applications, e.g., lasers in microscopy, high-speed imaging, attosecond metrology, 3D printing, optical atomic clocks, time-resolved spectroscopy, polarization and profile measurements, pulse measurements, and laser-induced fluorescence detection. • Adds new sections on laser materials processing, laser spectroscopy, lasers in imaging, lasers in environmental sciences, and lasers in communications. This handbook is the ideal companion for scientists, engineers, and students working with lasers, including those in optics, electrical engineering, physics, chemistry, biomedicine, and other relevant areas.

Actuators are devices that convert electrical energy into mechanical work, traditionally used in electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic systems. As the demand for actuator technologies grows in biomedical, prosthetic and orthotic applications, there is an increasing need for complex and sophisticated products that perform efficiently also when scaled to micro and nano domains. Providing a comprehensive overview of actuators for novel applications, this excellent book: * Presents a mechatronic approach to the design, control and integration of a range of technologies covering piezoelectric actuators, shape memory actuators, electro-active polymers, magnetostrictive actuators and electro- and magnetorheological actuators. * Examines the characteristics and performance of emerging actuators upon scaling to micro and nano domains. * Assesses the relative merits of each actuator technology and outlines prospective application fields. Offering a detailed analysis on current advances in the field, this publication will appeal to practising electrical and electronics engineers developing novel actuator systems. Mechanical and automation engineers, computer scientists and researchers will also find this a useful resource.

4M 2005 - First International Conference on Multi-Material Micro Manufacture

A hands-on guide to creating, monitoring, and tuning a high performance Spring web application Key Features Understand common performance pitfalls and improve your application's performance Build and deploy strategies for complex applications using the microservice architecture Understand internals of JVM - the core of all Java Runtime Environments Book Description While writing an application, performance is paramount. Performance tuning for real-world applications often involves activities geared toward detecting bottlenecks. The recent release of Spring 5.0 brings major advancements in the rich API provided by the Spring framework, which means developers need to master its tools and techniques to achieve high performance applications. Hands-On High Performance with Spring 5 begins with the Spring framework's core features, exploring the integration of different Spring projects. It proceeds to evaluate various Spring specifications to identify those adversely affecting performance. You will learn about bean wiring configurations, aspect-oriented programming, database interaction, and Hibernate to focus on the metrics that help identify performance bottlenecks. You will also look at application monitoring, performance optimization, JVM internals, and garbage collection optimization. Lastly, the book will show you how to leverage the microservice architecture to build a high performance and resilient application. By the end of the book, you will have gained an insight into various techniques and solutions to build and troubleshoot high performance Spring-based applications. What you will learn Master programming best practices and performance improvement with bean wiring Analyze the performance of various AOP implementations Explore database interactions with Spring to optimize design and configuration Solve Hibernate performance issues and traps Leverage multithreading and concurrent programming to improve application performance Gain a solid foundation in JVM performance tuning using various tools Learn the key concepts of the microservice architecture and how to monitor them Perform Spring Boot performance tuning, monitoring, and health checks Who this book is for If you’re a Spring developer who’d like to build high performance applications and have more control over your application's performance in production and development, this book is for you. Some familiarity with Java, Maven, and Eclipse is necessary.

The two volume set LNAI 10984 and LNAI 10985 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2018, held in Newcastle, NSW, Australia, in August 2018. The 81 papers presented in the two volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 129 submissions. The papers in the first volume of the set are organized in topical sections on multi-agent systems and distributed control; human-machine interaction; rehabilitation robotics; sensors and actuators; and industrial robot and robot manufacturing. The papers in the second volume of the set are organized in topical sections on robot grasping and control; mobile robotics and path planning; robotic vision, recognition and reconstruction; and robot intelligence and learning.