Piezoelectric ceramics in smart actuators and systems

In these several years piezoelectric and electro-strictive actuatorshave become very popular for micro-positioning in optical and precisionmachinery fields. Aiming at wide commercialization of these actuators, manyinvestigations have been made in the improvement of ceramic materials foractuators, designs of the devices and control and systemization of theactuators. This paper reviews recent applications of piezoelectric/electrostrictive ceramics from a viewpoint of "smart" actuators and systems.