Actuators, Volume 10, Issue 3 (March 2021) – 27 articles

This study discusses a circular trajectory tracking function through a proposed pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM)-actuated robot manipulator. First, a dynamic model between a robot arm and a PAM cylinder is introduced. Then the parameters thereof are identified through a genetic algorithm (GA). Finally, PID is used along with a high-order sliding-mode feedback controller to perform circular trajectory tracking. As the experimental results show, the parameters of sampling time and moment of inertia are set to accomplish the trajectory tracking task in this study. In addition, the maximum error between the objective locus and the following locus was 11.3035 mm when applying theta-axis control to the circular trajectory of the robot arm with zero load or lower load. In an experiment of controller comparison, the results demonstrate that a high-order sliding-mode feedback controller is more robust in resisting external interference and the uncertainty of modeling, making the robot arm have good performance when tracking. Full article

Electromagnetic actuator systems composed of an induction servo motor (ISM) drive system and a rice milling machine system have widely been used in agricultural applications. In order to achieve a finer control performance, a witty control system using a revised recurrent Jacobi polynomial neural network (RRJPNN) control and two remunerated controls with an altered bat search algorithm (ABSA) method is proposed to control electromagnetic actuator systems. The witty control system with finer learning capability can fulfill the RRJPNN control, which involves an attunement law, two remunerated controls, which have two evaluation laws, and a dominator control. Based on the Lyapunov stability principle, the attunement law in the RRJPNN control and two evaluation laws in the two remunerated controls are derived. Moreover, the ABSA method can acquire the adjustable learning rates to quicken convergence of weights. Finally, the proposed control method exhibits a finer control performance that is confirmed by experimental results. Full article

Purpose: We aim to provide a systematic methodology for the optimal design of MRD for improved damping capacity and dynamical adjustability in performing its damping function. Methods: A modified Bingham model is employed to model and simulate the MRD considering the MR fluid’s compressibility. The parameters that describe the structure of MRD and the property of the fluid are systematically examined for their contributions to the damping capacity and dynamically adjustability. A response surface method is employed to optimize the damping force and dynamically adjustable coefficient for a more practical setting related to the parameters. Results: The simulation system effectively shows the hysteretic characteristics of MRDs and shows our common sense understanding that the damping gap width and yoke diameter have significant effects on the damping characteristics of MRD. By taking a typical MRD device setup, optimal design shows an increase of the damping force by 33% and an increase of the dynamically adjustable coefficient by 17%. It is also shown that the methodology is applicable to other types of MDR devices. Conclusion: The compressibility of MR fluid is one of the main reasons for the hysteretic characteristics of MRD. The proposed simulation and optimization methods can effectively improve the MRD’s damping performance in the design stage. Full article

Shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators have recently demonstrated their potential for various applications in fields such as robotics, medicine, aerospace, and automotive. Its features, such as low weight and high force, simplicity, noiseless operation, and low cost compared with other conventional actuator, are only a few advantages of this actuator, which is receiving increasing interest among researchers. However, the use of these actuators is still limited by some of their characteristics: high position error in the cooling stage when the actuator works at frequencies that exceed the necessary cooling time and high electrical energy consumption. Different actuator configurations can help minimize these disadvantages through modifying the length, the number of cables, or the sheath used in the actuator, which modify the characteristics of the complete system. In this work, we developed different configurations of SMA actuators and tested their performance in terms of efficiency and the position error in the cooling stage. The findings demonstrate that over-dimensioned actuators are more energetically efficient and present a faster initial form recovery. The multi-wires actuator configuration produce a better response in terms of position but are less energy efficient. These conclusions allow for the selection of the most appropriate configuration based on the requirements of each particular application. Full article

Microfluidic devices providing an accurate delivery of fluids at required rates are of considerable interest, especially for the biomedical field. The progress is limited by the lack of micropumps, which are compact, have high performance, and are compatible with standard microfabrication. This paper describes a micropump based on a new driving principle. The pump contains three membrane actuators operating peristaltically. The actuators are driven by nanobubbles of hydrogen and oxygen, which are generated in the chamber by a series of short voltage pulses of alternating polarity applied to the electrodes. This process guaranties the response time of the actuators to be much shorter than that of any other electrochemical device. The main part of the pump has a size of about 3 mm, which is an order of magnitude smaller in comparison with conventional micropumps. The pump is fabricated in glass and silicon wafers using standard cleanroom processes. The channels are formed in SU-8 photoresist and the membrane is made of SiN_x. The channels are sealed by two processes of bonding between SU-8 and SiN_x. Functionality of the channels and membranes is demonstrated. A defect of electrodes related to the lift-off fabrication procedure did not allow a demonstration of the pumping process although a flow rate of 1.5 µL/min and dosage accuracy of 0.25 nL are expected. The working characteristics of the pump make it attractive for the use in portable drug delivery systems, but the fabrication technology must be improved. Full article

In this paper, a novel maglev coupling based on the opposed Halbach array is proposed as the interface between the linear electro-mechanical converter and 2D valve body. This non-contact maglev coupling possesses several advantages over existing mechanical couplings such as zero friction and wear, low vibration and noise, and no lubrication, which is expected to greatly improve the control accuracy and life cycle of the 2D valve. A detailed analytical model of maglev coupling is established based on the electro-magnetic theory. Firstly, the permanent magnets of the Halbach array is decomposed into several types of basic elements to obtain their individual analytical expressions, which are then re-superimposed into the whole coupling to obtain the analytical formula of torque–displacement characteristics. In order to obtain maximum output torque of maglev coupling, a parametric analysis was performed using an analytical model and optimal pitch angle and shifted distance was explored and found. To verify the correctness of the analytical modelling and parametric analysis results, the torque–displacement characteristics were also studied through both the FEM simulation and experimental approach. The results of analytical modelling, FEM simulation and experiment were in a good agreement, which shows that the maximum magnetic torque can reach about 0.579 N·m when the external armature displacement is 1 mm. The research work provides an important reference for the future application of maglev coupling in a 2D valve. Full article

Haptic displays have been developed to provide operators with rich tactile information using simple structures. In this study, a three-axis tactile actuator capable of thermal display was developed to deliver tactile senses more realistically and intuitively. The proposed haptic display uses pneumatic pressure to provide shear and normal tactile pressure through an inflation of the balloons inherent in the device. The device provides a lateral displacement of ±1.5 mm for shear haptic feedback and a vertical inflation of the balloon of up to 3.7 mm for normal haptic feedback. It is designed to deliver thermal feedback to the operator through the attachment of a heater to the finger stage of the device, in addition to mechanical haptic feedback. A custom-designed control module is employed to generate appropriate haptic feedback by computing signals from sensors or control computers. This control module has a manual gain control function to compensate for the force exerted on the device by the user’s fingers. Experimental results showed that it could improve the positional accuracy and linearity of the device and minimize hysteresis phenomena. The temperature of the device could be controlled by a pulse-width modulation signal from room temperature to 90 °C. Psychophysical experiments show that cognitive accuracy is affected by gain, and temperature is not significantly affected. Full article

Installing force-controlled end-effectors on the end of industrial robots has become the mainstream method for robot force control. Additionally, during the polishing process, contact force stability has an important impact on polishing quality. However, due to the difference between the robot structure and the force-controlled end-effector, in the polishing operation, direct force control will have impact during the transition from noncontact to contact between the tool and the workpiece. Although impedance control can solve this problem, industrial robots still produce vibrations with high inertia and low stiffness. Therefore, this research proposes an impedance matching control strategy based on traditional direct force control and impedance control methods to improve this problem. This method’s primary purpose is to avoid force vibration in the contact phase and maintain force–tracking performance during the dynamic tracking phase. Simulation and experimental results show that this method can smoothly track the contact force and reduce vibration compared with traditional force control and impedance control. Full article

Despite the challenges of practical implementation, electrocaloric (EC) cooling remains a promising technology because of its good scalability and high efficiency. Here, we investigate the feasibility of an EC cooling device that couples the EC and electromechanical (EM) responses of a highly functionally, efficient, lead magnesium niobate ceramic material. We fabricated multifunctional cantilevers from this material and characterized their electrical, EM and EC properties. Two active cantilevers were stacked in a cascade structure, forming a proof-of-concept device, which was then analyzed in detail. The cooling effect was lower than the EC effect of the material itself, mainly due to the poor solid-to-solid heat transfer. However, we show that the use of ethylene glycol in the thermal contact area can significantly reduce the contact resistance, thereby improving the heat transfer. Although this solution is most likely impractical from the design point of view, the results clearly show that in this and similar cooling devices, a non-destructive, surface-modification method, with the same effectiveness as that of ethylene glycol, will have to be developed to reduce the thermal contact resistance. We hope this study will motivate the further development of multifunctional cooling devices. Full article

The localization system of low-cost autonomous vehicles such as autonomous sweeper requires a highly lateral localization accuracy as the vehicle needs to keep a near lateral-distance between the side brush system and the road curb. Existing methods usually rely on a global navigation satellite system that often loses signal in a cluttered environment such as sweeping streets between high buildings and trees. In a GPS-denied environment, map-based methods are often used such as visual and LiDAR odometry systems. Apart from heavy computation costs from feature extractions, they are too expensive to meet the low-price market of the low-cost autonomous vehicles. To address these issues, we propose a mono-vision based lateral localization system of an autonomous sweeper. Our system relies on a fish-eye camera and precisely detects road curbs with a deep curb detection network. Curbs locations are then referred to as straightforward marks to control the lateral motion of the vehicle. With our self-recorded dataset, our curb detection network achieves 93% pixel-level precision. In addition, experiments are performed with an intelligent sweeper to prove the accuracy and robustness of our proposed approach. Results demonstrate that the average lateral distance error and the maximum invalid rate are within 0.035 m and 9.2%, respectively. Full article

The converter transformer is a special power transformer that connects the converter bridge to the AC system in the HVDC transmission system. Due to the special structure of the converter transformer, it is necessary to test its operation state during its manufacture and processing to ensure the safety of its future connection to the grid. Numerous studies have shown that vibration signals in transformers can reflect their operating state. Therefore, in order to achieve an effective identification of the operation state of the converter transformer, this paper proposes a method for identifying the operation state of the converter transformer based on vibration detection technology and a deep belief network optimization algorithm. This paper firstly describes the background, principle and application of vibration detection technology, using vibration measurement systems with piezoelectric acceleration sensors, piezoelectric actuators and data acquisition instruments to collect vibration signals at different measurement points on the converter transformer in states of no-load and on-load. By analyzing the time-frequency characteristics of the vibration signals, fast Fourier transform (FFT), wavelet packet decomposition (WPD) and time domain indexes (TDI) are combined into a fused feature extraction method to extract the eigenvalues of the vibration signals, so that the fused eigenvectors of the signals can be constructed. Considering the excellent performance of deep learning in classification, the deep belief network is used to classify the signals’ eigenvectors. To effectively improve the network classification efficiency, the sparrow search algorithm was introduced to build a mathematical model based on the behavioral characteristics of sparrow populations and combine the model with a deep belief network, so as to achieve adaptive parameter optimization of the network and accurate classification of the signals’ eigenvectors. The proposed method is applied to a 500 kV converter transformer for experimental verification. The experimental results show that the fused feature extraction method was able to fully extract the features of the vibration signal, and the deep belief network optimization algorithm had higher classification accuracy and better operational efficiency, and was able to effectively achieve accurate identification of the operation state of the converter transformer. In addition, the method achieved a precision response to the detection results of the vibration sensors, contributing to future improvements in converter transformer manufacturing technology. Full article

Droplets with a core–shell structure formed from two immiscible liquids are used in various industrial field owing to their useful physical and chemical characteristics. Efficient generation of uniform core–shell droplets plays an important role in terms of productivity. In this study, monodisperse core-shell droplets were efficiently generated using a flexural bolt-clamped Langevin-type transducer and two micropore plates. Water and silicone oil were used as core and shell phases, respectively, to form core–shell droplets in air. When the applied pressure of the core phase, the applied pressure of the shell phase, and the vibration velocity in the micropore were 200 kPa, 150 kPa, and 8.2 mm/s, respectively, the average diameter and coefficient of variation of the droplets were 207.7 μm and 1.6%, respectively. A production rate of 29,000 core–shell droplets per second was achieved. This result shows that the developed device is effective for generating monodisperse core–shell droplets. Full article

This article proposes a novel adaptive super-twisting sliding mode control scheme with a time-delay estimation technique (ASTSMC-TDE) to control the yaw angle of a single ducted-fan unmanned aerial vehicle system. Such systems are highly nonlinear; hence, the proposed control scheme is a combination of several control schemes; super-twisting sliding mode, TDE technique to estimate the nonlinear factors of the system, and an adaptive sliding mode. The tracking error of the ASTSMC-TDE is guaranteed to be uniformly ultimately bounded using Lyapunov stability theory. Moreover, to enhance the versatility and the practical feasibility of the proposed control scheme, a comparison study between the proposed controller and a proportional-integral-derivative controller (PID) is conducted. The comparison is achieved through two different scenarios: a normal mode and an abnormal mode. Simulation and experimental tests are carried out to provide an in-depth investigation of the performance of the proposed ASTSMC-TDE control system. Full article

It is difficult to describe precisely, and thus control satisfactorily, the dynamics of an electro-hydraulic actuator to drive a high thrust liquid launcher engine, whose structural resonant frequency is usually low due to its heavy inertia and complicated mass distribution, let alone one to drive a heavy kerolox engine with high-order dynamics. By transforming classic control block diagrams, a baseline two-mass-two-spring load model and a normalized actuator-engine system model were developed for understanding the basic physics and methodology, where a fourth-order transfer function is used to model the multi-resonance-frequency engine body outside of the rod position loop, another fourth-order transfer function with two pairs of conjugated zeros and poles to represent the composite hydro-mechanical resonance effect in the closed rod position loop. A sixth-order model was thereafter proposed for even higher dynamics. The model parameters were identified and optimized by a full factor search approach. To meet the stringent specification of static and dynamic performances, it was demonstrated that a notch filter network combined with other controllers is needed since the traditional dynamic pressure feedback (DPF) is difficult to handle the high-order dynamics. The approach has been validated by simulation, experiments and successful flights. The models, analysis, data and insights were elaborated. Full article

This paper analyzes the lift-production system in hovering of the flapping wing robot COLIBRI of the size of a hummingbird. The paper first examines the flapping wing mechanism for which a new gear transmission is proposed to reduce the friction and facilitate the assembly. Next, a sensitivity analysis is performed on the wing size. Then, the paper discusses several options for the gearbox, various DC motors and two battery configurations (a single battery or two batteries in series) to minimize the heat generation and increase the flight time. The configuration involving two batteries has been found more effective. The flight time is predicted using Shepherd’s discharge model and it is confirmed by an experiment. The robot sustains an endurance of nearly 5 min to produce a lift force equal to the weight of the robot. Full article

COVID-19 was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. It mainly affects the respiratory system and can lead to the death of the patient. The motivation for this study was the current pandemic situation and general deficiency of emergency mechanical ventilators. The paper presents the development of a mechanical ventilator and its control algorithm. The main feature of the developed mechanical ventilator is AmbuBag compressed by a pneumatic actuator. The control algorithm is based on an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), which integrates both neural networks and fuzzy logic principles. Mechanical design and hardware design are presented in the paper. Subsequently, there is a description of the process of data collecting and training of the fuzzy controller. The paper also presents a simulation model for verification of the designed control approach. The experimental results provide the verification of the designed control system. The novelty of the paper is, on the one hand, an implementation of the ANFIS controller for AmbuBag pressure control, with a description of training process. On other hand, the paper presents a novel design of a mechanical ventilator, with a detailed description of the hardware and control system. The last contribution of the paper lies in the mathematical and experimental description of AmbuBag for ventilation purposes. Full article

A universal suction cup that can stick to various objects expands the areas in which robots can work. However, the size, shape, and surface roughness of objects to which conventional suction cups can stick are limited. To overcome this challenge, we propose a new hybrid suction cup structure that uses the adhesive force of sticky gel and the suction force of negative pressure. In addition, a flexible and thin pneumatic balloon actuator with a check valve function is installed in the interior, enabling the controllable detachment from objects. The prototype has an outer diameter of 55 mm, a weight of 18.8 g, and generates an adsorption force of 80 N in the vertical direction and 60 N in the shear direction on porous walls where conventional suction cups struggle to adsorb. We confirmed that parts smaller than the suction cup and fragile potato chips are adsorbed by the prototype. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through experiments in which a drone with the prototypes can be attached to and detached from concrete walls and ceilings while flying; the possibility of adsorption to dusty and wet plates is discussed. Full article

This paper focuses on the universal control design of permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) with uncertain system dynamics. In vector control, classical proportional-integral (PI) controllers are used to control d-q axis currents and speed of the PMSM. This paper uses two control methods: conventional field-oriented vector control and simplified control. First, all the control gains are determined for numerous PMSMs with various power ratings using an empirical study and generalized mathematical expressions are derived for each of the gains. Then, these expressions are used for automatic gain calculation for various PMSMs with a wide power-rating range. In vector control, the control gains are determined using only the motor power ratings. In the simplified control, generalized control gain expressions are obtained using the number of pole pairs and the flux linkage. Compared to the vector control, the simplified control method provides much simpler generalized mathematical expressions. Validation is carried out in MATLAB/Simulink environment using various PMSMs from 0.2 HP to 10 HP, and results show accurate tracking of reference speed and d-q axis reference currents. Thus, the proposed gain scheduling approach is effective and can be used for self-commissioning motor drives. Full article

This research presents an analysis and management strategy for hovering hexacopter with one or more failing motors. Of late, multirotor drones have become particularly popular, and all drones have been increasing in popularity. Unlike a fixed-wing drone, failure of motors in a multirotor craft may cause safety problems. Numerous published articles have proposed solving this problem by redesigning the control law or control gain. This approach, however, is difficult to implement because change of control gain usually involves connecting external devices. This paper proposes to keep the control gain unchanged but reallocate the thrusts. Simulations are conducted on a hexacopter in various hovering modes. Some hovering state problems are investigated for the linearized dynamics but also numerically verified for the original nonlinear dynamics. In case some motors of a hexacopter fail in flight, an allocation matrix is proposed to redistribute required thrusts to functional motors. Seven cases of motor failure are studied. This paper analytically proves that limited controllability for emergency landing is feasible in four scenarios at the linear level, but the other three scenarios are completely uncontrollable. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the validity of our algorithm. An online video of real flight also confirms our results. This paper potentially helps the design of failure management of rotors and increases the successful rate of emergent landing. Full article

Passenger comfort and vehicle stability are key aspects that must be guaranteed on ground vehicles, and semi-active suspensions have offered an outstanding solution to meet these opposite objectives. This contribution describes a novel autoregressive with exogenous input (ARX) model-based predictive control strategy handled by a driver block applied on a semi-active vehicle suspension to improve passenger comfort and road holding when compared against a passive vehicle suspension system and another more complex control designs reported in the literature. The ARX model employs a driver block to reduce the computational load of the closed-loop semi-active suspension. In addition, the controller’s formulation and the case study consider the actuator’s physical constraints to achieve more realistic results. This case-study includes a one-quarter semi-active suspension with two degrees-of-freedom, and the numerical data comes from a real magnetorheological damper characterization. The results, in frequency-domain and time-domain, are measured based on specific performance criteria. A substantial improvement against a passive suspension is quantified and discussed. For a broader perspective of the findings, the results are compared against another reported work. This research effort could be the basis of further studies to achieve more robust solutions such as adaptive/optimal predictive controllers to improve vehicle’s comfort and stability. Full article

This paper presents nonlinear finite element (FE) models to predict time- and temperature-dependent responses of shape memory polymer (SMP) foams in the large deformation regime. For the first time, an A SMP foam constitutive model is implemented in the ABAQUS FE package with the aid of a VUMAT subroutine to predict thermo-visco-plastic behaviors. A phenomenological constitutive model is reformulated adopting a multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient into thermal and mechanical parts considering visco-plastic SMP matrix and glass microsphere inclusions. The stress split scheme is considered by a Maxwell element in parallel with a hyper-elastic rubbery spring. The Eyring dashpot is used for modelling the isotropic resistance to the local molecular rearrangement such as chain rotation. A viscous flow rule is adopted to prescribe shear viscosity and stress. An evolution rule is also considered for the athermal shear strengths to simulate macroscopic post-yield strain-softening behavior. In order to validate the accuracy of the model as well as the solution procedure, the numerical results are compared to experimental responses of Styrene and Polyurethane SMP foams at different temperatures and under different strain rates. The results show that the introduced FE modelling procedure is capable of capturing the major phenomena observed in experiments such as elastic and elastic-plastic behaviors, softening plateau regime, and densification. Full article

Due to their large working space and fast response, cable driven systems have been widely applied in manufacturing, robotics and motion simulators, etc. However, the cable is flexible and tends to resonate at high frequencies, which raises challenges for the motion control of the cable driven system. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a singular-perturbation-based adaptive control method with $\sigma$-modification. Taking advantage of the multi-time scale characteristics, the flexible system is approximately decomposed into two subsystems, and then the damping compensation is designed in the boundary layer subsystem to enhance the tension stability. In addition, estimated parameters drift may occur for the reduced-order system. Thus, the $\sigma$-modification is proposed to ensure that the tracking and estimation errors converge to a bounded residual set. The Lyapunov stability theorem proves that the closed-loop system is stable and errors are ultimately uniformly bounded. A research prototype of a twin-motor cable driven system is developed, and experimental investigation is conducted on it. The experimental results show that the proposed control method can effectively suppress cable resonance at high frequencies. Compared with the conventional adaptive control method, it can significantly increase the system bandwidth. Full article

High-rise structures are normally tall and slender with a large height-width ratio. Under the strong seismic action, such a structure may experience violent vibrations and large deformation. In this paper, a spring pendulum pounding tuned mass damper (SPPTMD) system is developed to reduce the seismic response of high-rise structures. This SPPTMD system consists of a barrel limiter with the built-in viscoelastic material and a spring pendulum (SP). This novel type of tuned mass damper (TMD) relies on the internal resonance feature of the spring pendulum and the collision between the added mass and barrel limiter to consume the energy of the main structure. Based on the Hertz-damper model, the motion equation of the structure-SPPTMD system is derived. Furthermore, a power transmission tower is selected to evaluate the vibration reduction performance of the SPPTMD system. Numerical results revealed that the SPPTMD system can effectively reduce structural vibrations; the reduction ratio is greater than that of the spring pendulum. Finally, the influence of the key parameters on the vibration control performance is conducted for future applications. Full article

This work relates to the reliable generalized predictive control issues in the case when actuator or sensor failures take place. The experimental results that form the basis from which the conclusions are drawn from have been obtained in the position control of a servo drive task, and extend the results from the prior research of the author, dedicated to velocity control problems. On the basis of numerous experiments, it has been shown which configuration of prediction horizons is most advantageous from the control performance viewpoint in the adaptive generalized predictive control framework, to cope with the latter failures, and related to a minimum performance deterioration in comparison with the nominal, i.e., failure-free, case. This case study is the main novelty of the presented work, as the other papers available in the field rather focus on additional modifications of the predictive control framework, and not leaving possible room for optimization/alteration of prediction horizons’ values. The results are shown on the basis of the experiments conducted on the laboratory stand with the Modular Servo System of Inteco connected to a mechanical backlash module to cause actuator/sensor failure-like behavior, and with a magnetic brake module to show the performance in the case of an unexpected load. Full article

Fluidic artificial muscles (FAMs), also known as McKibben actuators, are a class of fiber-reinforced soft actuators that can be pneumatically or hydraulically pressurized to produce muscle-like contraction and force generation. When multiple FAMs are bundled together in parallel and selectively pressurized, they can act as a multi-chambered actuator with bioinspired variable recruitment capability. The variable recruitment bundle consists of motor units (MUs)—groups of one of more FAMs—that are independently pressurized depending on the force demand, similar to how groups of muscle fibers are sequentially recruited in biological muscles. As the active FAMs contract, the inactive/low-pressure units are compressed, causing them to buckle outward, which increases the spatial envelope of the actuator. Additionally, a FAM compressed past its individual free strain applies a force that opposes the overall force output of active FAMs. In this paper, we propose a model to quantify this resistive force observed in inactive and low-pressure FAMs and study its implications on the performance of a variable recruitment bundle. The resistive force behavior is divided into post-buckling and post-collapse regions and a piecewise model is devised. An empirically-based correction method is proposed to improve the model to fit experimental data. Analysis of a bundle with resistive effects reveals a phenomenon, unique to variable recruitment bundles, defined as free strain gradient reversal. Full article

An online algebraic estimation technique for natural and forcing frequencies for a class of uncertain and lumped-parameter vibrating mechanical systems with n degrees of freedom is described. In general, realistic vibrating systems can be affected by unknown exogenous excitation forces with multiple and independent frequency harmonic components. Hence, natural frequencies as well as excitation force frequencies can be simultaneously computed from an algebraic approach into a small interval of time during online operation of the mechanical system. Measurements of an available output signal, associated with some specific degree of freedom, are only required for frequency estimation in time-domain. Information on mass, stiffness and damping matrices are not necessary for multifrequency estimation algorithms. Some analytical, numerical and experimental results on a cantilever Euler–Bernoulli beam are described to show and validate the acceptable estimation of multiple frequencies in forced multiple degrees of freedom vibrating systems. Full article

This paper proposes a simple but effective method for characterizing dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), especially for thin stacked DEAs, which are promising for haptic devices but which measure the dynamic elastic modulus with great difficulty. The difficulty of the measurement of such a thin stacked DEA arises from the friction and local deformation of the surface between the DEA and a contact, as shown in this paper. In the proposed method, a DEA is vertically suspended and a weight is attached to it. The proposed method requires no contact with the surface of a DEA and uses only a weighting mass. Experimental results demonstrated the proposed method can estimate almost essential constants, such as the dynamic elastic modulus (Young’s modulus and damping time constant), the electrical constants (permittivity and resistivity), and the coefficient of electromechanical coupling, through the forced vibration induced by voltage actuation. Full article