Smart Piezoelectric Bending Micro Actuator – An Integrated Inductive Non-Contact Proximity Sensor to Detect Tip Deflection

Inhalt:
Low voltage piezoelectric multilayer beam bending actuators are suitable for a wide range of applications that require deflection in range of hundreds of microns. A variety of applications has been realized, for example in robotics, automotive and in health care. To use piezoelectric bending actuators the accurate control of the beam deflection is necessary. However influences like hysteresis, non-linearities, creep, drift and external forces have to be compensated. In this paper we present a piezoelectric multilayer ceramic bender system with an integrated non-contact inductive sensor in combination with an especially developed ASIC. The emphasis is laid on an optimized sensor output and a minimal influence of the sensor on the actuator performance. The size of the sensor with the electronic circuit allows the usage in applications where small dimensions of a sensing system are needed.