In this dissertation, we propose a model and formulate a control methodology for a thin magnetostrictive rod actuator. The goal is to obtain a bulk, low dimensional model that can be used for real-time control purposes.

Previous and concurrent research in the modeling of magnetostrictive actuators and the related area of electrostrictive actuators have produced models that are of low order and reproduce their quasi-static response reasonably well. But the main interest in using these and other smart actuators is at a high frequency -- for producing large displacements with mechanical rectification, producing sonar signals etc. The well known limitation of smart actuators that are based on electro-magneto-thermo-elastic behaviors of smart materials is the complex, input-rate dependent, hysteretic behavior of the latter.

The model proposed in this dissertation is a bulk model and describes the behaviour of a magnetostrictive actuator by a system with 4 states. We develop this model using phenomenological arguments following the work done by Jiles and Atherton for describing bulk ferromagnetic hysteresis. The model accounts for magnetic hysteresis; eddy current effects; magneto-elastic effects; inertial effects; and mechanical damping. We show rigorously that the system with the intial state at the origin has a periodic orbit as its $Omega$ limit set. For the bulk ferromagnetic hysteresis model - a simplification of the magnetostrictive model, we show that all trajectories starting within a certain set approach this limit set.

It is envisioned that the model will help application engineers to do simulation studies of structures with magnetostrictive actuators. Towards this end, an algorithm is proposed to identify the various parameters in the model.

In control applications, one may require the actuator to follow a certain trajectory. The complex rate dependent behaviour of the actuator makes the design of a suitable control law a challenging one. As our system of equations do not model transient effects, they do not model the minor-loop closure property common to ferromagnetic materials. Therefore, the design of control laws making explicit use of the model (without modifications) is not possible.

A major reason to use model free approaches to control design is that magnetostrictive actuators seem to have slight variations in their behavior with time. Therefore, we tried to use a direct adaptive control methodology that uses features of our model. The system is now looked at as a relative degree two linear system with set-valued input nonlinearity. Extensions of Eugene Ryan's work on universal tracking for a relative degree one linear system and Morse's work on stablization for relative degree two linear systems were sought.

Experimental verification of our method confirmed our intuition about the model structure. Though the tracking results were not very satisfactory due to the presence of sensor noise, the experimental results, nevertheless validate our modeling effort.