Design and Simulation of a Single Piezoelectric-Driven Rotary Actuator with Double-Layer Flexible Mechanism

Abstract

A novel pure rotary actuator with a double-layer flexible mechanism (RA-DFM), which is driven by a single piezoelectric ceramic in the lower mechanism and generates rotational motion in the upper mechanism, is proposed in this paper. The output of piezoelectric ceramic is successively amplified using an enhanced double Scott–Russell mechanism and two lever-type mechanisms to obtain a large rotation range. The static, kinematic and dynamic properties of the RA-DFM are numerically analyzed, and the actual output of the piezoelectric is analyzed considering the input stiffness. The geometric parameters of the RA-DFM are optimized based on the constructed numerical models. Finite element analysis has been implemented to validate the correctness of the theoretical models and further evaluate the output property. The simulation results show the maximal rotation angle of the RA-DFM is 15.14 mrad with 0.44% center drift.