Handling memory properties of smart materials: A review on modeling, compensation and control

The interest in smart alloys as active materials to design new devices is constantly increasing. This brings the necessity to develop robust and accurate models for the underlying complex physical phenomena in order to improve the device performance. Special attention has to be paid to understanding the coupling of mechanical and electromagnetic characteristics in dynamical processes. In particular, rate independent memory effects are commonly seen as a serious drawback in the design of the controller. In the manuscript we aim to present a clear and unified view of the basic points to be faced with, when the analysis and design of control algorithms for smart devices are concerned. So, the focus is pointed out on the basic issues of hysteresis modeling, based on the Preisach operator, and its ability to describe a dissipation process, which opens the way to an affordable and reliable design of control algorithms for smart devices.