An Impact Inertial Piezoelectric Actuator Designed by Means of the Asymmetric Friction

Abstract

With simple structure and control, impact inertial piezoelectric actuators are one promising type for precision positioning with large working stroke and high resolution. However, their applications still face some challenges, especially the incompatibility between speed and resolution as well as the motion instability due to the overturning moment. Therefore, innovative design of impact inertial actuators is urgently required. In this article, by designing an asymmetric compliant mechanism with a thick end and a thin end to generate asymmetric friction between the driving feet and U-groove, a novel impact inertial piezoelectric actuator was proposed. Its structure design, working principle, and output performances were addressed in detail. The results indicated that the thick end and thin end had quite different stepping characteristics, and the ideal stepping characteristic with quite small backward motion was achieved at the thick end. The displacement-time curves confirmed the motion stability of the actuator for bidirectional motions, and the small difference in forward and reverse speeds was explored. This actuator achieved the maximum speed of 7311 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">μ</i> m/s, the resolution of 221 nm, vertical and horizontal loading capacities being over 20 N and 1.4 N, respectively. Performance comparison with some previous impact inertial actuators further demonstrated the advancement.