The Roles of Piezoelectric Ultrasonic Motors in Industry 4.0 Era: Opportunities & Challenges

Piezoelectric Ultrasonic motors (USM) are based on the principle of converse piezoelectric effect i.e., vibrations occur when an electrical field is applied to piezoelectric materials. USMs have been studied several decades for their advantages over traditional electromagnetic motors. Despite having many advantages, they have several challenges too. Recently many researchers have started focusing on Industry 4.0 or Fourth Industrial revolution phase of the industry which mostly emphasis on digitization & interconnection of the entities throughout the life cycle of the product in an industrial network to get the best possible output. Industry 4.0 utilizes various advanced tools for carrying out the nexus between the entities & bringing up them on digital platform. The studies of the role of USMs in Industry 4.0 scenario has never been done till now & this article fills that gap by analyzing the piezoelectric ultrasonic motors in depth & breadth in the background of Industry 4.0. This article delivers the novel working principle, illustrates examples for effective utilization of USMs, so that it can buttress the growth of Industry 4.0 Era & on the other hand it also analyses the key Industry 4.0 enabling technologies to improve the performance of the USMs

An Innovative 3D Ultrasonic Actuator with Multidegree of Freedom for Machine Vision and Robot Guidance Industrial Applications Using A Single Vibration Ring Transducer

This paper presents an innovative 3D piezoelectric ultrasonic actuator using a single flexural vibration ring transducer, for machine vision and robot guidance industrial applications. The proposed actuator is principally aiming to overcome the visual spotlight focus angle of digital visual data capture transducer, digital cameras and enhance the machine vision system ability to perceive and move in 3D. The actuator Design, structures, working principles and finite element analysis are discussed in this paper. A prototype of the actuator was fabricated. Experimental tests and measurements showed the ability of the developed prototype to provide 3D motions of Multidegree of freedom, with typical speed of movement equal to 35 revolutions per minute, a resolution of less than 5μm and maximum load of 3.5 Newton. These initial characteristics illustrate, the potential of the developed 3D micro actuator to gear the spotlight focus angle issue of digital visual data capture transducers and possible improvement that such technology could bring to the machine vision and robot guidance industrial applications

Surface micromachined mechanisms and micromotors

Electric micromotors are sub-millimeter sized actuators capable of unrestrained motion in at least one degree of freedom. Polysilicon surface micromachining using heavily phosphorus-doped LPCVD polysilicon for the structural material, LPCVD silicon nitride for the electrical isolation and deposited silicon dioxide for the sacrificial material has formed the fabrication technology base for the development of these micromotors. Two polysilicon surface micromachining processes, referred to here as the center-pin and flange, have been demonstrated for the fabrication of passive mechanisms and micromotors. Passive mechanisms such as gear trains, cranks and manipulators have been implemented on silicon. Reported operational micromotors have been of the rotary variable-capacitance salient-pole and harmonic (or wobble) side-drive designs. These micromotors are capable of motive torques in the 10 pN m order of magnitude range. Preliminary progress has been made in studying the operational, friction and wear characteristics of these micromechanical devices. Typical operational voltages have been as low as 37 V and 26 V across 1.5 mu m air gap salient-pole and harmonic micromotors. These excitations correspond to electric field intensities above 10(8) Vm-1 in the micromotor air gaps. Salient-pole and wobble micromotors have been reported to operate at speeds as high as 15000 rpm and 700 rpm, respectively. Micromotor lifetimes of at least many millions of cycles over a period of several days have been reported

Pjezorobotų trajektorijų valdymas nanopalydovų stabilizavimui

Rapid industrial advancement requires novel ideas, new scientific approaches and effective technologies that would ensure quality and precision. Application of piezoelectric actuators in robotics opens many possibilities to create systems with extreme precision and control. A very important step in the development of autonomous robots is the formation of motion trajectories. Classical interpolation methods used for formation of the trajectories are suitable only when robots have wheels, legs or other parts for motion transmission. Piezorobots that are analyzed in this dissertation have no additional components that create motion, only contact points with the static plane. Therefore, traditional motion formation methods are not suitable and a problem arises how to define motion trajectory of such device. The aim of this work is to create a trajectory control algorithm of multi-degrees-of-freedom piezorobot used for nanosatellite stabilization. In order to achieve the objective, the following tasks had to be solved: to analyze constructions of precise piezorobots, their operating principles and motion formation methods; to analyze stabilization problems of satellites and application of multi-degrees-of-freedom piezorobots for nanosatellite stabilization; to create piezorobots’ motion formation algorithms according to electrode excitation schemes, to perform an experimental research; to determine quantitative characteristics of the constructed piezorobots and their motion trajectories. The introduction describes the importance and novelty of this thesis, goals of this work, its practical value and defended statements. The first chapter analyses the principals of ultrasonic devices, gives a thorough review of constructions of ultrasonic devices with multi-degrees-of-freedom. The second chapter provides a review of satellite stabilization principles and how multi-degrees-of-freedom piezorobots can be applied for nanosatellite stabilization. Motion formation methods for ultrasonic devices with multi-degrees-of-freedom are presented. The third chapter presents the detailed analysis of different piezorobots. In the fourth chapter experimental results are provided. Trajectory planning of piezorobot is shown, results are compared to numerical calculations performed in the third chapter. The conclusions about applicability of piezorobots’ motion formation algorithms according to electrode excitation schemes are given. Seven articles focusing on the subject of the dissertation have been published, two presentations on the subject have been presented in conferences at international level. The research for the dissertation has been funded by the Lithuanian State Science and Studies Foundation: European Regional Development Fund, Project No. DOTSUT-234 and Research Council of Lithuania, Project No. MIP-084/2015.Dissertatio

Design of Unimorph Type 3DOF Ultrasonic Motor

A new design of 3 degrees of freedom (DOF) piezoelectric ultrasonic motor (USM) is introduced in this paper. The concept of this design is to incorporate a spherical rotor between two piezoelectric transducers. Each transducer is coupled with a flange, and it operates like a unimorph structure. Such a design of the transducer allows to increase the amplitude of the vibrations and to generate the higher torque and driving force used to achieve 3DOF rotary motion of the spherical rotor. The proposed USM may be used for humanoid robots, optomechanical systems, or small satellites. This USM consists of several components, is lightweight and reliable. Numerical analysis and experimental studies were performed to validate the feasibility of this drive, to find out proper resonant frequencies for the unimorph, and optimize the shape of the flange. Experimental studies were accomplished to validate the results of the numerical analysis and to validate the operating principles of the piezoelectric motor.This article belongs to the Special Issue Ultrasonic Transducers and Related Apparatus and ApplicationsThis research was funded by the European Regional Development Fund under a grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuania, grant number 01.2.2-LMT-K-718-01-0010

Torque Model for Position Control of Multi-degree of Freedom Electromagnetic Actuator

Department of Mechanical EngineeringA Spherical Wheel Motor (SWM) is one of electromagnetic actuators capable of providing three degree of freedom (DOF) rotational motions as a single device. The SWM can be applied to many application such as industrial robots, humanoid robots, surgical instrument, etc due to its compactness. However, the existed SWM has to be improved to apply practical applications in the areas of compact design, force and torque, and control systems and so on. The objective of the thesis is to develop the method of torque model for SWM and position control using in open loop control. The torque model requires understanding the design of SWM as well as magnetic fields analysis. In particular, the analysis of magnetic fields of the SWM is very difficult and requires long computational time due to complexity and a number of magnetic poles. The existing models based on numerical methods may not be suitable to control the SWM. Therefore, the simple but accurate torque model is required to real-time control. In previous research, the torque model of SWM was demonstrated the summation of interaction between each permanent magnets and electromagnets as the magnetic circuit is linear. In this work, the equations of interaction between the permanent magnets and electromagnets was simplified using the structural characteristic of SWM. The torque model was suggested in closed-form using simplified torque model. The experiment and other simulations were performed to check the validity of simplified torque model. To verify the simplified torque model, the position control was operated using push-pull principal. To demonstrate that the torque model and position control principal were proper, the experiment was performed the position control in open-loop control. The simplified torque model offers fast computational performance compared with other simulation tools results, and shows that the torque values are reasonable to control. Furthermore, the experiment results show that the SWM is properly controlled the position using the proposed torque model and position control mechanism.ope

Design of a six degree-of-freedom haptic hybrid platform manipultor

Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Izmir, 2010Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 97-103)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxv, 115 leavesThe word Haptic, based on an ancient Greek word called haptios, means related with touch. As an area of robotics, haptics technology provides the sense of touch for robotic applications that involve interaction with human operator and the environment. The sense of touch accompanied with the visual feedback is enough to gather most of the information about a certain environment. It increases the precision of teleoperation and sensation levels of the virtual reality (VR) applications by exerting physical properties of the environment such as forces, motions, textures. Currently, haptic devices find use in many VR and teleoperation applications. The objective of this thesis is to design a novel Six Degree-of-Freedom (DOF) haptic desktop device with a new structure that has the potential to increase the precision in the haptics technology. First, previously developed haptic devices and manipulator structures are reviewed. Following this, the conceptual designs are formed and a hybrid structured haptic device is designed manufactured and tested. Developed haptic device.s control algorithm and VR application is developed in Matlab© Simulink. Integration of the mechanism with mechanical, electromechanical and electronic components and the initial tests of the system are executed and the results are presented. According to the results, performance of the developed device is discussed and future works are addressed