Individual drive and control of piezoelectric actuators with a single power supply unit by using variable resistors

Abstract

A new method of driving and controlling multiple piezoelectric actuators individually with a single power supply unit using variable resistors was developed, and its effectiveness was investigated. This method provides effective high-accuracy shape control under weight limitation as each actuator can have a desired voltage applied individually from the single power supply unit using variable resistors. It was observed that the proposed method can drive piezoelectric actuators without degrading their operational performance when compared to representative actuator driving methods. Moreover, a shape control utilizing the proposed method was demonstrated to be more accurate than the conventional grouping method of multiple piezoelectric actuators, by numerical analysis and experiments on cantilever beams.

Keywords

• piezoelectric actuator
• variable resistor
• smart structure
• high accuracy reflector
• active shape control