Development of a resonant screw-driven piezoelectric motor operating in single-mode vibration.

A resonant screw-driven piezoelectric motor operating in single-mode vibrations is proposed, designed, manufactured, and studied. The motor is constructed with a stator and a threaded rotor. The stator consists of a hollow parallelogram metal elastomer and two piezoelectric ceramic plates. The motor is excited by a single-phase signal to produce two separate vibration modes: the first expansion mode (B1 mode) and the second expansion mode (B2 mode). Each mode drives the threaded rotor in one direction, and the bidirectional motion is achieved by switching the two modes. The construction is designed, and modal simulation is performed using finite element software to determine the structural parameters. A frequency-domain analysis is performed to obtain the frequency response characteristics, and the motion trajectories of the stator are obtained using transient analysis. Finally, a prototype is produced, and experiments are conducted. Experimental results indicate that the no-load speeds of the motor under the 200 Vp-p voltage excitation are 1.67 and 1.04 mm/s in the two modes, which correspond to maximum loads of 35 and 20 mN, respectively.

Resonant-Type Piezoelectric Pump Driven by Piezoelectric Stacks and a Rhombic Micro Displacement Amplifier.

To obtain a high flow rate, a resonant-type piezoelectric pump is designed, fabricated, and studied in this paper. The pump consists of four parts: a piezoelectric vibrator, a pump chamber, a check valve and a compressible space. The designed piezoelectric vibrator is composed of a rhombic micro displacement amplifier, counterweight blocks and two piezoelectric stacks with low-voltage drive and a large output displacement. ANSYS software (Workbench 19.0) simulation results show that at the natural frequency of 946 Hz, the designed piezoelectric vibrator will produce the maximum output displacement. The bilateral deformation is symmetrical, and the phase difference is zero. Frequency, voltage, and backpressure characteristics of the piezoelectric pump are investigated. The experimental results show that at a certain operating frequency, the flow rate and the backpressure of the piezoelectric pump both increase with the increase in voltage. When the applied voltage is 150 Vpp, the flow rate reaches a peak of 367.48 mL/min at 720 Hz for one diaphragm pump, and reaches a peak of 700.15 mL/min at 716 Hz for two diaphragm pumps.

Development of a resonant piezohydraulic hybrid actuator.

This paper proposes a piezohydraulic hybrid actuator driven by a resonant vibrator based on two rhombic micro-displacement amplifiers. The resonant piezohydraulic hybrid actuator consists of a resonant piezoelectric vibrator, a pump body, a manifold, a return valve, and an output cylinder. The vibration mode of the piezoelectric vibrator is simulated, and the working principle of the resonant piezohydraulic hybrid actuator is depicted. Then, the performance of the piezohydraulic hybrid actuator is experimentally investigated, and the effects of exciting frequency, exciting voltage, and bias pressure are analyzed. The results demonstrate that the hybrid actuator performs the best when the exciting frequency is near the resonant frequency; meanwhile, the higher the exciting voltage, the better the performance. Moreover, it indicates that a larger bias pressure will bring a larger reaction force to the vibrator and reduce the performance of the actuator system. The maximum blocked force and no-load velocity are 378 N and 4.8 mm/s, respectively, when the bias pressure is 1.5 MPa and the exciting voltage is 500 Vpp.

Mass transfer from the rotor to the stator for improving the speed of the piezoelectric motor based on centrifugal force.

To improve the speed of a piezoelectric motor based on centrifugal force, a method is proposed on the basis of mass transfer from the rotor to the stator. Multi-degree-of-freedom vibration models are established before and after mass transfer. A mass of 150 g is transferred from the six-hole rotor to the stator. This process increases the rotation frequency of the rotor under the same friction loss and increases the energy fed into the rotor by the stator. The motor operates at a frequency close to the resonance frequency. The change in the initial phase with the operating frequency close to the resonance frequency is analyzed, and the phase adjustment device and the signal processing circuit are designed. Two prototypes, one with and one without mass transfer, are fabricated and measured. As the initial phase is adjusted from 0° to 75°, the motor rotation frequency gradually increases, approaching the resonant frequency of the motor. When the excitation voltage is 790 Vp-p, the speed of the piezoelectric motor with a mass transfer of 150 g reaches 11 004 rpm, which is 89% faster than the speed of that without mass transfer.

State-of-the-art research in robotic hip exoskeletons: A general review.

Ageing population is now a global challenge, where physical deterioration is the common feature in elderly people. In addition, the diseases, such as spinal cord injury, stroke, and injury, could cause a partial or total loss of the ability of human locomotion. Thus, assistance is necessary for them to perform safe activities of daily living. Robotic hip exoskeletons are able to support ambulatory functions in elderly people and provide rehabilitation for the patients with gait impairments. They can also augment human performance during normal walking, loaded walking, and manual handling of heavy-duty tasks by providing assistive force/torque. In this article, a systematic review of robotic hip exoskeletons is presented, where biomechanics of the human hip joint, pathological gait pattern, and common approaches to the design of robotic hip exoskeletons are described. Finally, limitations of the available robotic hip exoskeletons and their possible future directions are discussed, which could serve a useful reference for the engineers and researchers to develop robotic hip exoskeletons with practical and plausible applications in geriatric orthopaedics. THE TRANSLATIONAL POTENTIAL OF THIS ARTICLE: The past decade has witnessed a remarkable progress in research and development of robotic hip exoskeletons. Our aim is to summarize recent developments of robotic hip exoskeletons for the engineers, clinician scientists and rehabilitation personnel to develop efficient robotic hip exoskeletons for practical and plausible applications.

Novel piezoelectric rotary motor driven by a single-phase sine wave with an asymmetric stator.

This study demonstrates a new approach for constructing a rotary piezoelectric motor that utilizes an asymmetric stator driven by a single-phase signal. An asymmetric stator with four driving feet is proposed on the basis of the idea of generating asymmetric action on the rotor. This new motor consists of one piezoelectric transducer with two anchors and four driving feet placed in a parallelogram and internally connected to a circular rotor. The four feet vibrate asymmetrically to push the rotor into motion in one direction when a preload is applied. The proposed motor is designed, analyzed, and tested by using a finite element method (FEM). The vibration and impedance characteristics of the stator are measured after fabricating a prototype, and the test results are consistent with the FEM analysis results. The typical output of the prototype is a no-load speed of 176.5 rpm and a maximum torque of 29.4 N mm at an excitation voltage of 274 Vp-p.

Resonant-type piezoelectric inertial linear motor based on the optimization of a dual stage tuning fork transducer.

A dual stage tuning fork transducer (DSTFT) is designed as a stator for a resonant-type inertial linear motor. The first- and second-layer resonant frequencies of DSTFT are automatically adjusted with a ratio of 1:2 by using an ANSYS optimization design algorithm, and a resonant-type sawtooth-shaped mechanical waveform is generated by composing the two resonant vibrations of DSTFT. An inertial linear motor prototype is fabricated and tested. Experimental results confirmed the effectiveness of the designed transducer. The no-load maximum speed is 21.5 mm/s with a driving voltage of 67.2 Vp-p at a base frequency of 2831 Hz. The linear speed is 10.5 mm/s, and the drag load is 0.02 N at a preload force of 1 N and a driving voltage of 114 Vp-p for the base frequency. The movement direction could be reversed by changing the driving voltage phase.

Bio-inspired piezoelectric linear motor driven by a single-phase harmonic wave with an asymmetric stator.

A novel, bio-inspired, single-phase driven piezoelectric linear motor (PLM) using an asymmetric stator was designed, fabricated, and tested to avoid mode degeneracy and to simplify the drive mechanism of a piezoelectric motor. A piezoelectric transducer composed of two piezoelectric stacks and a displacement amplifier was used as the driving element of the PLM. Two simple and specially designed claws performed elliptical motion. A numerical simulation was performed to design the stator and determine the feasibility of the design mechanism of the PLM. Moreover, an experimental setup was built to validate the working principles, as well as to evaluate the performance, of the PLM. The prototype motor outputs a no-load speed of 233.7 mm/s at a voltage of 180 Vp-p and a maximum thrust force of 2.3 N under a preload of 10 N. This study verified the feasibility of the proposed design and provided a method to simplify the driving harmonic signal and structure of PLMs.