In recent years, "intelligent (sm. o. rt) structures antlllJ/stems" has become an emerging new research area that is multi-disciplinary in nature, requiring technical expertise from mechanical engineering, structural engineering, electrical engineering, applied mechanics, engineering mathematics, material science, computer science, biological science, etc. This technology is quite likely to contribute significant advancements in the design of high-performance structures, adaptive structures, high-precision systems, micro-systems, etc. Although this emerging area has been rapidly gathering momentum in the last few years, researchers are aware that to some extent only initial, but highly feasible studies of the concepts proposed have been conducted. It is obvious that many important, pertinent fundamental research subjects must yet be investigated and resolved in the near future. We have the privilege to invite a number of highly regarded research scientists and engineers to summarize and contribute the results of their years of research experience with the evolution of intelligent (smart) structures and systems to the collection of chapters contained in this book. Their research topics include current intelligent (smart) structures research activities, piezoelectric structures, shape memory alloy reinforced composites, applications of electrorheological fluids, intelligent sensor systems, adaptive precision trusses, damage detection, model refinement, control of axial moving continua, distributed transducers, etc. These subjects represent only a small portion of the complete picture; indeed, the fundamentally important development of smart or intelligent materials is not addressed in detail here.
