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

Abstract

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.

Research on interactions between different operating modes of piezoelectric motors

“…As typical direct drive type actuators, piezoelectric motors utilize mechanical vibrations in ultrasonic range as their driving source [1][2][3][4]. Two voltages with 90-degree phase difference should normally be applied to piezoelectric ceramic (PZT) elements in order to excite operating modes.…”