Actuators consist of mainly electro-mechanical devices that provide us some action on the basis of controller signals. Based on signals sent by the controllers, actuators get activated or deactivated. Actuators are mainly motors; servos fall into this category as well. Controllers cannot directly control actuators because of the high power requirements or the nature of the current (AC or DC) of the actuators. The interfacing hardware component is called a driver circuit.

Controllers send control signals to the driver circuits and based on these control signals, the actuators gets activated. While dealing with the robotics module of this book, the actuators will be discussed in detail.