During the last two decades, active and semi‐active vibration control of civil engineering structures has attracted growing worldwide interest as an innovative technology in the earthquake and wind engineering fields. In Japan, there has been rapid progress in research and development in the construction and mechanical industries and at universities, because the concept of active control is widely expected to exceed the performance limitations of conventional earthquake‐resistant structures. As a result, about 70 active and semi‐active control systems have already been applied to actual buildings in Japan since 1989. The 1995 Kobe Earthquake opened a door to positive development of semi‐actively controlled structures against large earthquakes. Semi‐active control research affects both conventional seismic‐resistant structures and passively controlled structures. At present, structural control includes not only active and semi‐active control but also passive control. Vibration problems in civil engineering structures are examined again from the standpoint of control engineering. Practical applications of structural control encourage monitoring and system identification research with recently advanced information technology. The observation records of buildings and controllers under dynamic loadings have been analyzed to confirm the effectiveness of the installed control systems. This paper introduces practical applications of active and semi‐active control of buildings in Japan and reports control verification methods through observation data recorded in controlled buildings. The state of the art proves that structural control and its related monitoring technologies are growing as general design items for tall buildings and flexible structures. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

SUMMARYAn Active Mass Driver (AMD) system is proposed to suppress actively the response of a building to irregular external excitations such as earthquakes and typhoons. This system has been introduced to an actual ten-storey office building for the first time in the world. The system controls the motions of a structure by means of an external energy supply. It consists of an auxiliary mass installed in a building and an actuator that operates the mass and produces a control force which counters disturbances to the building. The design method of the AMD system, including the location of the installation and the capacity and stability of the system, is proposed. Simplification of the control algorithm is also described.

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SUMMARYAn Active Mass Driver (AMD) system is proposed to suppress actively the response of a building to irregular external excitations such as earthquakes and typhoons.' This system has been introduced to an actual ten-storey office building constructed in Tokyo in August, 1989. The proposed analytical methods utilize circuits of the system and mechanical characteristics to understand the real control effect of the system. Simulation analyses are also performed to verify the analytical model and the control effect during observed earthquakes.