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Actuators
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Actuators for System Identification, Vibration Analysis, and Control—2nd Edition
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Actuators for System Identification, Vibration Analysis, and Control—2nd Edition

A special issue of Actuators (ISSN 2076-0825). This special issue belongs to the section "Control Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 2075

Editor

Prof. Dr. Francisco Beltran-Carbajal

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Departamento de Energía, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Unidad Azcapotzalco, Mexico City 02200, Mexico
Interests: vibration control; system identification; rotating machinery; mechatronics; automatic control of energy conversion systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Oscillations manifest in numerous dynamic systems. Vibrations can be found in a wide range of applications of mechanical, electric, electronic, electromechanical, and electromagnetic systems. Actuators play a key role in successfully accomplishing vibration control in addition to parametric estimation of vibrating engineering systems.

This Special Issue aims to present recent and innovative contributions to vibration analysis, system identification, estimation of parameters and signals, and diverse control methods for a wide variety of oscillating systems. Important advances in both theoretical and experimental studies for analysis, identification, and control of oscillating systems, including the application of actuators, are within the scope of the present Special Issue.

Thus, in this context, we welcome important contributions related (but not limited) to modeling, vibration control, estimation and identification, vehicle suspensions, dynamic vibration absorbers, rotordynamics, wind energy conversion systems, modal analysis, dynamic structures, finite element analysis, numerical methods, and other engineering applications and theoretical developments in this broad field.

Prof. Dr. Francisco Beltran-Carbajal
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Actuators is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • vibration control
  • system identification
  • modal analysis
  • structural dynamics
  • finite element analysis
  • rotordynamics

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 5190 KB  
Article
Kinematic Indicators as Complementary Performance Metrics for PID and Fuzzy Speed Controllers in Rover Actuators
by Juan David Guncay, Christian Salamea Palacios, Javier Viñanzaca and Michael Peralta
Actuators 2026, 15(6), 342; https://doi.org/10.3390/act15060342 - 17 Jun 2026
Viewed by 200
Abstract
This work presents an experimental comparison of three speed control strategies for a permanent magnet DC (PMDC) rover actuator implemented on a resource-constrained embedded microcontroller platform. The system operates under fixed-rate discrete control with quantized encoder velocity feedback, representative of low-cost embedded systems. [...] Read more.
This work presents an experimental comparison of three speed control strategies for a permanent magnet DC (PMDC) rover actuator implemented on a resource-constrained embedded microcontroller platform. The system operates under fixed-rate discrete control with quantized encoder velocity feedback, representative of low-cost embedded systems. The controllers evaluated are a classical PID, a PID controller designed via discrete pole placement, and a Mamdani fuzzy controller. Beyond conventional tracking and transient response metrics, the proposed evaluation framework incorporates jerk-based kinematic indicators to assess the mechanical activity induced by control actions under both nominal and mechanically disturbed operating conditions. Experimental validation was performed over a range of operating speeds using repeated trials, and the observed differences were evaluated through nonparametric statistical testing. The results show that controller rankings depend strongly on operating conditions: the classical PID provides smoother motion under nominal conditions, whereas the fuzzy and compensated PID controllers achieve superior disturbance rejection when external mechanical perturbations are introduced. These findings reveal a clear tradeoff between mechanical smoothness and tracking robustness, and demonstrate that controllers exhibiting better tracking performance do not necessarily produce the smoothest kinematic response. The principal contribution of this work is the experimental demonstration that jerk-based indicators provide essential complementary information to conventional performance metrics for the evaluation and selection of embedded speed controllers in mechatronic systems subject to variable mechanical loading. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Actuators for System Identification, Vibration Analysis, and Control—2nd Edition)
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13 pages, 690 KB  
Article
Discriminating Vibrotactile Signals: The Relative Roles of Amplitude and Frequency
by Ivan Makarov, Árni Kristjánsson and Runar Unnthorsson
Actuators 2026, 15(3), 164; https://doi.org/10.3390/act15030164 - 12 Mar 2026
Viewed by 584
Abstract
Vibrotactile interfaces commonly encode information using changes in stimulus amplitude and frequency, yet it remains unclear how reliably these parameters can be distinguished when spatial cues are unavailable. The present study examined discrimination of vibrotactile signals that differed in amplitude, frequency, or both, [...] Read more.
Vibrotactile interfaces commonly encode information using changes in stimulus amplitude and frequency, yet it remains unclear how reliably these parameters can be distinguished when spatial cues are unavailable. The present study examined discrimination of vibrotactile signals that differed in amplitude, frequency, or both, with sequential stimulation delivered to a single location on the wrist. Vibrotactile stimuli were presented through a wearable actuator, and participants judged whether pairs of signals were the same or different. Discrimination performance was high when stimuli differed in amplitude, whereas signals differing only in frequency were difficult to distinguish and often produced performance near chance. Importantly, adding frequency differences to amplitude differences did not improve discrimination beyond amplitude differences alone. These findings indicate that, under non-spatial and sequential presentation conditions, amplitude provides a robust cue for vibrotactile signal discrimination, whereas frequency modulations on their own offer limited benefits for perceptual discrimination. The results highlight basic constraints on vibrotactile perception that are relevant for the design of wearable tactile interfaces and sensory substitution devices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Actuators for System Identification, Vibration Analysis, and Control—2nd Edition)
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30 pages, 5036 KB  
Article
Filtering and Fractional Calculus in Parameter Estimation of Noisy Dynamical Systems
by Alexis Castelan-Perez, Francisco Beltran-Carbajal, Ivan Rivas-Cambero, Clementina Rueda-German and David Marcos-Andrade
Actuators 2025, 14(10), 474; https://doi.org/10.3390/act14100474 - 27 Sep 2025
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 823
Abstract
The accurate estimation of parameters in dynamical systems stands for an open key research issue in modeling, control, and fault diagnosis. The presence of noise in input and output signals poses a serious challenge for accurate real-time dynamical system parameter estimation. This paper [...] Read more.
The accurate estimation of parameters in dynamical systems stands for an open key research issue in modeling, control, and fault diagnosis. The presence of noise in input and output signals poses a serious challenge for accurate real-time dynamical system parameter estimation. This paper proposes a new robust algebraic parameter estimation methodology for integer-order dynamical systems that explicitly incorporates the signal filtering dynamics within the estimator structure and enhances noise attenuation through fractional differentiation in frequency domain. The introduced estimation methodology is valid for Liouville-type fractional derivatives and can be applied to estimate online the parameters of differentially flat, oscillating or vibrating systems of multiple degrees of freedom. The parametric estimation can be thus implemented for a wide class of oscillating or vibrating, nth-order dynamical systems under noise influence in measurement and control signals. Positive values are considered for the inertia, stiffness, and viscous damping parameters of vibrating systems. Parameter identification can be also used for development of actuators and control technology. In this sense, validation of the algebraic parameter estimation is performed to identify parameters of a differentially flat, permanent-magnet direct-current motor actuator. Parameter estimation for both open-loop and closed-loop control scenarios using experimental data is examined. Experimental results demonstrate that the new parameter estimation methodology combining signal filtering dynamics and fractional calculus outperforms other conventional methods under presence of significant noise in measurements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Actuators for System Identification, Vibration Analysis, and Control—2nd Edition)
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