A review of recent studies on non-resonant piezoelectric actuators

This paper presents a review of electrothermal micro-actuators and applications. Electrothermal micro-actuators have been a significant research interest over the last two decades, and many different designs and applications have been investigated. The electrothermal actuation method offers several advantages when compared with the other types of actuation approaches based on electrostatic and piezoelectric principles. The electrothermal method offers flexibility in the choice of materials, low-cost fabrication, and large displacement capabilities. The three main configurations of electrothermal actuators are discussed: hot-and-cold-arm, chevron, and bimorph types as well as a few other unconventional actuation approaches. Within each type, trends are outlined from the basic concept and design modifications to applications which have been investigated in order to enhance the performance or to overcome the limitations of the previous designs. It provides a grasp of the actuation methodology, design, and fabrication, and the related performance and applications in cell manipulation, micro assembly, and mechanical testing of nanomaterials, Radio Frequency (RF) switches, and optical Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS).

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Review of Electrothermal Actuators and Applications

Multi-degree-of-freedom (multi-DOF) piezoelectric motion stage is an important part of modern manufacturing industry. In order to perform high precision outputs in a large travel range, various multi-DOF piezoelectric motion stages have been proposed and applied for decades. This paper is concentrated on reviewing the research on a piezoelectric motion stage. It involves the major components, operating principles of different actuation modes, design schemes, and structures of the multi-DOF piezoelectric motion stages. In this paper, the summary and classification of the actuation modes used in the multi-DOF piezoelectric motion stages are presented, mainly including the resonance actuation mode, inertial actuation mode, clamping and feeding actuation mode, and direct actuation mode; the multi-DOF piezoelectric motion stage is divided into multi-actuator type and single-actuator type according to the number of actuators used in the motion stage, in which the multi-actuator type includes series, parallel, and series–parallel types from the viewpoint of structure mechanism; in addition, the output performances of the stages are compared, and the state of the arts of the stages are discussed and summarized; the further efforts and future research perspectives are highlighted.

Review on Multi-Degree-of-Freedom Piezoelectric Motion Stage

Arthropod-Metamerism-Inspired Resonant Piezoelectric Millirobot

This paper presents the design, modeling, and experimental validation of a novel XYZ micro/nano positioner driven by piezoelectric actuator (PEA). To achieve a large motion stroke, compact structure and good decoupling performance, a novel displacement amplifier including L-shape levers and half-bridge (LSLHB) is proposed. By utilizing a concave input mechanism for location restriction between PEA and flexible mechanism, the motion coupling caused by the inconsistent central axes of the PEA and input mechanism is eliminated. The XYZ micro/nano positioner mainly consists of a parallel XY stage and a Z stage nested on the XY stage. The XY stage is constructed with four LSLHB amplifiers which are orthogonally arranged to realize X- and Y- axis motion and kinematic decoupling. The characteristics of the positioner are studied by analytical modeling and finite element analysis. The XYZ micro/nano positioner is manufactured by wire electrical discharge machining, and the performance of the positioner is evaluated through experimental tests. The results show that the stage can implement three degree-of-freedom translational motion with a workspace of 128.1 μm×131.3 μm×17.9 μm, and the coupling errors in the non-working direction is less than 1.56 % of the motion stroke, and motion resolution is 8 nm.

A novel XYZ micro/nano positioner with an amplifier based on L-shape levers and half-bridge structure

This paper presents the design of a new compact 1-DOF compliant stage driven by a piezoelectric actuator (PEA)for micro/nano-positioning in vertical direction. In order to fulfill the design requirement and to improve the compactness and output directionality of the stage, a series of design processes are presented. In particular, an orthogonal compound bridge-type (OCBT)amplifier is introduced to amplify the displacement of the PEA. It can significantly reduce the height of the stage, leading to a compact design. The design variables are determined by analyzing the mechanism. These design variables are optimized by multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA)based on finite-element analysis (FEA). The optimal design results in the stage dimension of 58 × 20 × 15.5 mm3. Performance evaluation is conducted by FEA analysis. Results show that the 1-DOF stage is able to provide a maximum displacement of 181.18 μm, which is more than 12 times the input displacement of PEA. Payload testing results indicate the stage can support a maximum load of about 80 N.

Design of a Compact 1-Dof Piezo-Driven Flexure Stage for Vertical Micro/Nano-Positioning

This paper presents the design and optimization of a symmetrical compliant XYZ parallel stage for micro-/nano-positioning, which is driven by three piezoelectric actuators (PEAs). A compact design is devised by introducing serial-parallel 3-DOF decoupling unit and spatial compound bridge-type amplifiers. Structural parameter optimization has been conducted via finite-element analysis (FEA)-based multi-objective genetic algorithm, which produces a compact physical size of the XYZ stage. The performance of the optimized XYZ stage under different loads are evaluated by FEA simulation study. Under free-load condition, the stage is able to provide a workspace of 143.10 × 143.12 × 135.18 μm 3. The maximum horizontal cross-axis error is only 0.01%, while the vertical cross-axis error is 5.54%, which is caused by the gravity effect. The loading test result reveals that the maximum bearable load of the stage is up to 74.46 N, i.e., 7.6 kg.

Zeyi Wu

Papers

Design of a Compact 1-Dof Piezo-Driven Flexure Stage for Vertical Micro/Nano-Positioning

Design of a Novel Piezo-Driven XYZ Compliant Parallel Micro/Nano-Positioning Stage