Actuators basically perform certain physical actions based on the readings of the different types of sensors.
Actuators are based on the working principles of electronics, electrical or mechanical systems with some kind of control signals.
These control systems act on the environment so an actuator requires some kind of a control signal and a source of energy for their functioning.
There are different actuators that are available for use in IoT (Internet of Things).
Control signals are required for the actuators, when these actuators receive a control signal they respond by converting that energy into mechanical motion. There are different kinds of actuators for e.g. hydraulic actuator, pneumatic actuator etc.
The actuators give an output based on which there can be some linear motion or some oscillatory motion or rotatory motion.
There are different kind of soft actuators which are actually polymer-based and are designed to handle fragile objects like fruit harvesting in agriculture or in biomedicine handling the internal organs of human beings.
Soft actuators are typically used in robotics and are quite popular. They use SMPS, which are Shape Memory Polymers and the behaviour of the polymers depend on the change of the stimuli of the environment.
