A controlled impinging jet is a promising tool for various heat/mass transfer applications, such as drying technologies or cooling of highly loaded electronic devices or gas turbine blades. An axisymmetric air jet was excited using a system of four synthetic jets distributed around the circumference of the primary nozzle. First, the control synthetic jets were measured alone. After an adjustment, the primary axisymmetric jet was excited to the helical or bifurcating modes, and its behavior was studied experimentally including an impingement effect to the wall. For comparison purposes, a reference steady (unforced) jet from the same nozzle was also measured. The flow visualization, hot-wire anemometry, PIV, and naphthalene sublimation techniques were used. The main purpose was to investigate the influence of the actuation on the impingement heat transfer at the Reynolds numbers 1600 and 5000. The effects of the Strouhal number and nozzle-to-wall spacing on a distribution of the local heat transfer were evaluated. The most significant effects were found at the Strouhal numbers 0.14-0.32 at the ratio of the control to primary jet momentum rates only 0.24-2.4%. Under small nozzle-to-wall spacing H/D = 2, the excitation led to heat transfer increase in the stagnation area - the most prominent enhancement 40% was found at the stagnation point. Under moderate nozzle-to-wall spacing H/D = 6, the excitation made more uniform the Nusselt number distribution by means of a substantial reduction of the stagnation heat transfer rate. (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.