Strategies for Optimal Placement of Sensors and Actuators

A paper presents a survey of sensor- and actuator-placement problems from various applications that involve a wide range of engineering disciplines. "Smart" structures that contain sensors (e.g., microphones or strain sensors) and actuators (e.g., loudspeakers or piezoelectric actuators) can be used, for example, to control the shapes of airfoils or to suppress noise or structural vibrations. In designing a "smart" structure, one faces the problem of placing limited numbers of sensors and actuators to maximize some measure of performance; typically, the locations must be selected from a large set of candidate locations.