Drive Signals for Maximizing the Velocity of Piezoelectric Inertia Motors

Piezoelectric inertia motors have a simple construction and are controlled by a single driving signal. This allows for miniaturization and low cost production. One of the main questions to be answered during the design process of a piezoelectric inertia motor is which electrical excitation signal yields optimum motor characteristics. Three signals and their variants are widely used in literature: sawtooth, parabolic and cycloidic signals. It can be shown that neither of these can drive the motor at its maximum possible velocity in non-resonant operation. Within this paper we propose to use a rigid body model of a simple inertia motor to predict the motor characteristics depending on the movement pattern of the driving element. Advantages and disadvantages of three different drive signals that maximize the motor velocity are discussed.