Novel design, analytical and experimental studies of a piezoelectric ultrasonic linear actuator based on binate feet driving

This article presents the piezoelectric ultrasonic linear actuator based on binate feet driving. The actuator is equipped with a rhombus binate feet mechanism to generate two synchronous rectangle driving trajectories. With the help of the two synchronous trajectories, the proposed actuator can deliver stable long-range motion (the designed maximum stroke is 19 mm) accompanying with large loading capacity and high driving resolution. The configuration and operational principle are described in detail and the driving trajectory of the binate feet is analyzed. Finite element analysis is conducted to investigate the static deformation and stress status of the driving mechanism at every step. The experimental system is established to test the performance of the actuator prototype and the results indicate that the prototype can be operated stably step by step and all steps have high reproducibility. The driving resolution (minimum step length) of the actuator prototype is 25.9 nm. The maximum loading capacity and the maximum thrust are 37.2 and 3.2 N, respectively. The experimental results also confirm that the designed actuator can achieve various motion velocities by changing the driving voltage and driving frequency.