Recent Advances in Piezoelectric Actuators and Energy Harvesting Technologies

Dear Colleagues,

Piezoelectric technology has emerged as a cornerstone in modern engineering, enabling two distinct yet complementary functionalities: precise actuation and effective energy harvesting. Piezoelectric actuators are renowned for their high precision, fast response, and versatile applications in robotics, biomedical devices, aerospace, and industrial automation. Concurrently, piezoelectric energy harvesting technologies offer promising solutions for powering microelectronics, wireless sensors, and low-power devices by converting ambient mechanical vibrations or movements into usable electrical energy.

This Special Issue of Actuators aims to provide a platform for showcasing the latest advances in both domains. We invite contributions that explore the design, modeling, control, fabrication, and implementation of piezoelectric actuators, as well as innovative materials, structures, circuits, and system integrations for piezoelectric energy harvesting. Submissions addressing hybrid or multifunctional systems that combine actuation and energy harvesting are also highly encouraged.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Novel piezoelectric materials and composite structures for actuators and/or energy harvesters;
• Modeling, simulation, and optimization of piezoelectric actuation and energy conversion;
• Advanced control strategies for precision piezoelectric actuators;
• Circuit design, power management, and storage interfaces for piezoelectric energy harvesting;
• Applications of piezoelectric actuators in robotics, precision positioning, adaptive structures, and medical devices;
• Applications of piezoelectric energy harvesters in self-powered sensors, wearable electronics, IoT, and structural health monitoring;
• Micro- and nano-scale piezoelectric actuation and energy harvesting systems;
• Reliability, durability, and performance evaluation of piezoelectric devices;
• Cross-disciplinary studies integrating actuation, sensing, and energy harvesting.

Dr. Dongmei Xu
Guest Editor

Dr. Simiao Yu
Guest Editor Assistant

Prof. Dr. Xuhui Zhang
Dr. Jianan Pan
Co-Guest Editors

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.