Thursday, November 10, 2011
This video explains the mechanisms for several types of piezo motors and actuators. The most common piezo actuators consist of stacks of thin piezoceramic layers that extend when a voltage is applied. Shear actuators produce lateral motion. When stacked they make very compact XY positioners. A disk bimorph actuator is a combination of a piezo disk and a metal disk, which results in amplified motion. Flexure actuators provide precision guided motion and travel ranges to several millimeters. Ultrasonic piezo motors provide high speed and long travel. PiezoWalk motors provide high force and sub-nanometer precision. Flexure guided piezo states provide multi-axis motion with sub-nanometer resolution. The highest accuracy is achieved when combined with parallel metrology and capacitive sensors.