Dynamic analysis of a high-bandwidth, large-strain, PZT cellular muscle actuator with layered strain amplification

Abstract

This paper presents the dynamic analysis of an artificial muscle actuator designed for high-bandwidth, powerlaw strain amplification. The actuator is based on a nested cellular architecture of PZT stack actuators. Most smart material actuators have seen limited use in mobile robotic applications because of their small strain, low stress capacity, low bandwidth, and stringent input requirements. The proposed actuator design overcomes these limitations and can serve as a high-bandwidth multifunctional artificial muscle. The dynamic characteristics of the actuator design are derived analytically and validated experimentally. A test system mimicking flapping flight is then used to illustrate the actuator dynamics.

Large Effective-Strain Piezoelectric Actuators Using Nested Cellular Architecture With Exponential Strain Amplification Mechanisms

“…Especially, dynamic analysis is important for high-speed actuation. Based on our preliminary work [25], the dynamics modeling will be discussed in our future publication. The future work also includes 5) investigation of manufacturing aspects for accuracy improvement and future cost reduction since the number of actuators as well as the complexity increase as the number of layer increases.…”

“…Meeting a static performance goal is the primary concern in designing a strain amplifier of this kind. Dynamic analysis and synthesis will be reported in a companion paper [25]. We assume that the linear characteristic in (8) holds for simplicity since the hysteresis compensation of piezoelectric materials has long been studied [26] and is not the main aim of this paper.…”

“…Note that, the direction off 1 is opposite to f PZT due to the amplification leverage. This simplified model has a similar form as in (25). Fig.…”

Output properties of cellular artificial actuator

“…The output force is the summation of the force generation at the individual strands arranged in parallel. Asada et al studied systematically cellular actuators including a cellular design for a robotic hand with 12 SMA actuators [2,3] , design of PZT cellular actuators with power-law strain amplification [4] and its static lumped parameter model [5] , dynamic analysis [6] , and a broadcast-probability approach to the control of vast DOF cellular actuators [7] . Compared with single artificial muscle cell, a group of artificial muscles generated displacement and force can be easily tailored by adjusting the length and the number of artificial muscle cells, respectively [8,9] .…”

Mathematical modelling and experimental characterization of a high dynamic servo valve integrated with piezoelectric actuator

“…Developments in actuator technologies have resulted in a new generation of smart actuators such as piezoelectric which can be used in multilayer configuration with mechanical amplifier to obtain required strokes. In the literature, various types of design, geometry, and analytical procedure for amplification mechanisms have been explained [11][12][13][14]. In this work, particular attention is given to the piezoelectric actuators because of their ability to respond very quickly.…”