Recent Advances in Piezoelectric Sensors and Actuators

As popular actuators, sensors and transducers, piezoelectric materials generate electric charges when applied to forces, and inversely generate forces/displacements undergoing input voltages. Such direct and inverse piezoelectric effects exhibit high electromechanical conversion efficiency, nano-level resolutions and large blocking forces with a compact structure, in contrast to some other smart materials. Targeting different engineering tasks, direct and inverse piezoelectric effects have been applied extensively in actuator and sensor scenarios, ranging from the macro-scale to the micro-scale and the nano-scale. Traditional applications include precision manufacturing, micro/nano-manipulation, precision automatic assembly, all kinds of force- and mass-sensitive sensors in mechanical, electrical, chemical and physical fields as well as other applications such as energy harvesters and transducers, to name a few. Recent advances in such areas have enabled emerging principles and data-driven signal processing to enhance the performance of piezoelectric actuators and sensors, with ultra-high performance and extreme capacity limits. These actuator and sensor applications are enabled by the new sensing/actuating principles, novel concepts related to design, sophisticated modeling and analysis as well as the implementation of advanced signal processing and control strategies.

The main focus of this Special Issue is the state of the art of piezoelectric actuators and sensors dedicated to the science and engineering fields, with a particular interest in the emerging evolution of interdisciplinary research topics. This Special Issue is focused on, but not limited to, novel principle and design theories, modeling and analyses methods, and modern manufacturing techniques that can be utilized to improve piezoelectric actuator and sensor performance or to configure new conceptions of applications. Research papers, technical briefs, and review articles are welcome in this Special Issue.

Dr. Huicong Liu
Dr. Mingxiang Ling
Dr. Haiyang Li
Guest Editors

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• piezoelectric actuators
• piezoelectric sensors
• piezoelectric energy harvesters
• piezoelectric ultrasonic motors
• piezoelectric MEMS/NEMS devices and systems
• piezoelectric composite structures
• piezoelectric acoustic transducers
• piezoelectric hysteresis modeling and control
• piezoelectric precision motion mechanisms
• piezoelectric micro/nano manipulations