A Brief Review on the Recent Evolution in Piezoelectric Linear Ultrasonic Motors

This article represents the various recent advancements in the field of Piezoelectric Ultrasonic Motors especially in linear type. The construction and operation principles evolving time to time. We have accumulated and presented a brief discussion on the linear ultrasonic motor including its working principles, initial designs and recent advancements in this article. These motors have had increasing applications in recent years and have been developing rapidly due to its simplicity of construction and good performance. The potential applications are expanding lately to various areas such as medical devices, precise positioning systems, astronautical devices, tactile feedback systems, and many more. Owing to the wide range of applications, simple and compact design, rapidly increasing miniaturization, and the several advantages of the linear ultrasonic motor, it has been a vastly researched area in the last few decades. More and more effort is being put into creating smaller and efficient designs, structures and materials of the device, with stable and upgraded output performance, and acceptable range of frictional wear enabling prolonged usage.

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

The influence of laser surface texture on the tribological properties of friction layer materials in ultrasound motors

Ultrasonic motors are typically driven by the dry friction force between the rotor and the stator; the friction pairs’ high friction coefficient and low wear rate are two essential elements for improving the operational stability with longer service life. In this research article, high-precision microgroove arrays were manufactured on the surfaces of the stator and rotor of the TRUSM60 ultrasonic motor using laser machining. Dry friction and wear tests between the stator and the rotor were carried out with pin-on-disc using HSR-2M high-speed reciprocating friction and wear tester to determine the tribological properties of the ultrasonic motor. According to a different distribution of microgrooves on the two contact surfaces, the influence of smooth surface, single-sided texture, and double-sided texture on the friction pair's friction performance were discussed. The results show that the textured surface can substantially increase the coefficient of friction of the contact surface and reduce the rate of wear. The one-sided textured phosphor bronze surface with a microgroove width of 200μm and an area ratio of 20% had the highest coefficient of friction of 0.334 and a friction increase rate of 36.3%. Similarly, the single-sided textured Polyimide surface attained the highest friction coefficient of 0.355 and friction increase rate of 44.9% when the groove width is 150μm and the area ratio is 30%. A higher friction coefficient of the double-sided texture can be obtained through reasonable parameter configuration than the single-sided texture. The included angle of 0° between the two textured surfaces produced the highest friction coefficient of 0.368 and the wear rate of the phosphor bronze and polyimide surfaces were 2.01 × 10−4 mm3/N-m and 1.949 × 10−3 mm3/N-m, respectively. The result provides an essential benchmark for enhancing the tribological performance of ultrasonic motors and increasing the output torque.

Efficiency Model for Traveling Wave-Type Ultrasonic Motors Based on Contact Variables and Preload

The contact interface variables are difficult to measure for an ultrasonic motor. When the ultrasonic motor works under different preloads, the error between the traditional efficiency model and the real output is quite large. In order to solve these two problems, we propose a novel efficiency model. It takes measured preload and the feedback voltage data as the input, which may offer better accuracy and on-line ability. Firstly, the effect of the preload on the drive characteristics is investigated, and the relationship between preload and the change in motor energy input is analyzed. Secondly, a contact model based on measured preload and feedback voltage is built, providing a more accurate description of the contact variables. Finally, an efficiency model was developed with a new composite stator structure. A preload test rig for a 60 mm ultrasonic motor is built and real operating conditions are measured. The results show that the correlation coefficient of the present model is 0.991, larger than 0.925 of the conventional model. The proposed model is more consistent with the real working conditions for the motor.

Preload Optimization Method for Traveling-Wave Rotary Ultrasonic Motor

Preload optimization is very important for ultrasonic motors’ design and application. In this paper, a novel method for a traveling-wave rotary ultrasonic motor is proposed. Firstly, based on linear regression and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), the mapping between the drive characteristics, mechanical characteristics, speed stability, and preload of the traveling-wave-type rotary ultrasonic motor was established. Then, the characteristic curves of stalling torque, no-load speed, maximum efficiency, and speed stability with the change of preload method were measured with a new test platform. Finally, three traveling-wave rotary ultrasonic motors with optimized preload were used in a cooperative manipulator for validation. The experimental results showed that when the preload was optimized from 200 N to 310 N, the stalling torque of the motor increased by 20.7%, the maximum efficiency increased by 15.3%, the standard deviation of the speed decreased by 53.8%, and the no-load speed decreased by 5.5%. Therefore, it can be seen that the new preload optimization approach can significantly improve the performance indexes of ultrasonic motors and meet the practical requirements of direct-drive cooperative manipulators in engineering applications. The new preload optimization method offers advantages in motor output performance compared to conventional methods.