Reducing backward motion of stick-slip piezoelectric actuators using dual driving feet designed by asymmetric stiffness principle

Stick–slip piezoelectric actuators (SSPEAs) have drawn attention for their features of simple structure and high positioning accuracy. However, the backward motion has always been a major problem that limits driving speed and smoothness. Existing methods mainly focus on control methods and driving signal optimization, while few efforts emphasize mechanical structure optimization. To address this problem from the root of structure design, a novel SSPEA based on the principle of asymmetric stiffness is developed. A dual-driving feet configuration generates phase differences between two feet when feeding sawtooth driving signals. The core idea is that the backward motion of one driving foot can be compensated by another foot making full use of the phase difference due to the asymmetric stiffness compliant mechanism (ASCM). Kinematic and static models are built and the structural dimensions are then determined. Finite element analysis is conducted preliminarily to test the output performance. A physical prototype is fabricated and experimentally verified. Experimental results show the proposed actuator with ASCM achieves smaller backward motion and larger step size ranging from 250 to 1400 Hz driving frequencies compared with traditional triangular compliant mechanism (TTCM). The maximum speed is obtained as 47.2 mm/s with a resolution of $0.07\mu m$.