This paper reviews turbulent boundary-layer control strategies for skin-friction reduction of aerodynamic bodies. The focus is placed on the drag-reduction mechanisms by two flow control techniques—spanwise oscillation and spanwise travelling wave, which were demonstrated to give up to 45 per cent skin-friction reductions. We show that these techniques can be implemented by dielectric-barrier discharge plasma actuators, which are electric devices that do not require any moving parts or complicated ducting. The experimental results show different modifications to the near-wall structures depending on the control technique.