In recent years, new physicochemical principles and new transducing materials have been discovered, which make it possible to generate mechanical actions that perform the basic functions of an actuator. In today’s world, with increasingly stringent demands for control of widely varying devices, there is a need to find ever more efficient actuators, with more power, bandwidth and precision but smaller in size. This is clearly the case, for example, of actuators for implantation in human beings or for use on space vehicles. The scientific approaches that the research community has adopted toward the new actuators have been very unfocused and sectoral, as readers will appreciate from the long list of over 50 very recent references dealing with specific aspects that are discussed at the end of this book. This generalized situation of fragmented analysis contrasts with the painstakingly comprehensive and rigorous account, which, here, offers the reader an overview of the subject. Its purpose is to help build up a body of doctrine relating to emerging actuator technologies, and its primary virtue is to treat the various different materials as active or semiactive mechatronic devices so as to be able to integrate them in a controlled system. The actuator itself is considered as a mechatronic system with all its attendant derivatives.

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