Single-Phase Drive Linear Ultrasonic Motor with Perpendicular Electrode Vibrator

Unlike most ultrasonic motor designs, in this study, we employ a pair of perpendicular electrodes to energize a piezoelectric vibrator, in which the angle between the direction of polarization and the electric field is purposely set at neither 0 nor 90° so that both the longitudinal and shear effects of the vibrator can be generated simultaneously by a single-phase voltage source. Such a vibrator can generate oblique line trajectories on the contact surface to push a slider for movement, while its moving direction can be easily controlled by switching the excitation sequence of the pair of perpendicular electrodes. In this study, the finite element analysis method was first employed to simulate the oscillatory behavior of the vibrator and then simulation results were verified by single-point, noncontact measurement on the surface of the vibrator. The newly designed linear ultrasonic motor, which can offer identical performance in both forward and backward motions, can maintain its attractive characteristics of simple structure, quiet operation, and single-phase drive. A prototype of the single-phase drive linear ultrasonic motor was fabricated to confirm the feasibility of the proposed vibrator design. The illustrated bidirectional linear ultrasonic motor is shown to be capable of generating a sliding velocity of 84.2 mm/s and a sliding force of 1.79 N.