Dynamic Behavior of Telescopic Actuators

Abstract

While piezoelectric actuators are very useful for high frequency applications, their small strokes pose a significant constraint to most applications. Internally leveraged amplification schemes overcome this constraint, but at the cost of output force and bandwidth. The telescopic actuation architecture employs a novel internal amplification scheme that provides a moderate stroke amplification (up to 20 times) while maintaining high force and bandwidth. This paper presents a study of the dynamic behavior of this generic type of actuation. Because of the complexity of the structure, a new modeling technique based upon adaptation of the transfer matrix method was developed. As validation, a three cylindrical PZT5H telescopic actuator was fabricated and experimentally tested.