All transportation systems, including aircraft, suffer from fatigue failures. To ensure that components and systems reach their target life times durability testing is carried out. The generation of very high forcing levels required, at both low and high frequencies currently requires complex and expensive equipment. The choices open to a company needing to test is between; electromagnetic shakers and servo hydraulic actuators. In both cases the costs involved are high and more importantly the performances are always compromised.

The impact on the environment through the use of these systems is typically high as they invariably use large electronic amplifiers or hydraulic plant that consumes 100's of kW of power. The HATS system will use the SMART material TERFENOL-D to produce a composite actuator. The actuator will comprise a low frequency hydraulic ram and high frequency Magnetstrictive force actuator aligned in series.