A 3‐DOF Inchworm Using Levitation Caused by Vertical Vibration

We propose a 3‐DOF inchworm‐type microactuator that uses levitation generated by vertical vibration. The vertical vibration is created by a piezoelectric actuator. The inchworm typically consists of thrust elements and clamp elements. The proposed inchworm, however, does not use any clamp elements. Four levitation elements are connected with four thrust elements, which are stacked‐type piezoelectric actuators. The levitation element consists of a mass, a piezoelectric actuator, and a plate. The vertical vibration of the piezoelectric actuator lifts the levitation elements, which eliminates any friction. By controlling the order of the deformation of the horizontal piezoelectric actuators and the vibration of the vertical piezoelectric actuators, the inchworm engages in linear and rotational motion. The levitation height and the linear and rotational displacement of the inchworm were measured. Experimental results demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed 3‐DOF inchworm. The mechanism described in this paper is effective for a precision positioning system in a clean room.     

Examination of vibration control of linear oscillatory actuator

Linear oscillatory actuators (LOAs) are widely used in linear motor shavers, electric toothbrushes, and mobile phone vibrators as high‐speed oscillatory driving devices. The maximum amplitude of the motor is obtained at a resonant frequency that is determined from the spring constant and the mass of the motor. However, there is a problem with these actuators: the amplitude decreases sharply when the driving frequency differs from the resonant frequency in a mechanical vibration system with minimal damping. In this paper, we propose a control method for the resonant frequency in which the thrust, which shows the characteristics of a spring, is generated on the basis of the displacement of the mover and the damping factor, in which the thrust, which shows the characteristics of damping, is generated based on the velocity of the mover. The proposed method assures that the resonant frequency always corresponds to the driving frequency and that rapid changes in the amplitude are avoided. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 178(4): 55–62, 2012; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21172     

Accommodation of unknown actuator faults using output feedback‐based adaptive robust control

In this paper, we solve the problem of output tracking for linear uncertain systems in the presence of unknown actuator failures using discontinuous projection‐based output feedback adaptive robust control (ARC). The faulty actuators are characterized as unknown inputs stuck at unknown values experiencing bounded disturbance and actuators losing effectiveness at unknown instants of time. Many existing techniques to solve this problem use model reference adaptive control (MRAC), which may not be well suited for handling various disturbances and modeling errors inherent to any realistic system model. Robust control‐based fault‐tolerant schemes have guaranteed transient performance and are capable of dealing with modeling errors to certain degrees. But, the steady‐state tracking accuracy of robust controllers, e.g. sliding mode controller, is limited. In comparison, the backstepping‐based output feedback adaptive robust fault‐tolerant control (ARFTC) strategy presented here can effectively deal with such uncertainties and overcome the drawbacks of individual adaptive and robust controls. Comparative simulation studies are performed on a linearized Boeing 747 model, which shows the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bilateral Control of a Velocity Control System Using Electric and Hydraulic Actuators

Working in extreme environments (e.g., at disaster sites) is dangerous for humans. Hence, it is important to use teleoperated robots in such extreme environments. Because heavy lifting work is involved, hydraulic actuators with high output are more commonly used than electric actuators. Therefore, it is necessary to operate remotely controlled robots driven by hydraulic actuators. Bilateral control is remote control with a sense of force. Because most bilateral control systems have been studied mainly using electric actuators, bilateral control using hydraulic actuators is still a challenge. In this study, we propose placing a bilateral controller between an electric actuator on the master side and a hydraulic actuator on the slave side using position and velocity. The controller exhibits the dynamics of bilateral control systems using position and velocity. In addition, the control performance of conventional methods and that of the proposed method are compared and experimentally verified.     

Model predictive control for tendon‐driven balloon actuator on simulation

Many pneumatic actuators have been developed to be lightweight with high output for decreasing the impact force. However, for pneumatic actuators it is difficult to maintain exact control because these actuators have constraints. In this study, we developed model predictive control (MPC) that can accommodate these constraints when applied to the pneumatic actuator we developed. As described here, we compared and evaluated the control performance using MPC and proportional–integral–derivative (PID) control with an anti‐windup control system. © 2016 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Development of Control Method for Outer‐Rotor Spherical Actuator

Conventional multi‐degree‐of‐freedom drive systems need many single‐degree‐of‐freedom actuators, but this makes the structure larger and heavier. The development of a spherical actuator should reduce the number of actuators, but the low torque and narrow rotation range are still problems. We developed a 2‐degree‐of‐freedom spherical actuator with an outer rotor that can produce a higher torque and wider rotation angle. In this paper, we propose a control method; we confirmed its usefulness by performing dynamic analysis using the three‐dimensional finite element method and by taking measurements with a prototype.     

Adaptive actuator failure compensation design for unknown chaotic multi‐input systems

In this paper, an adaptive control approach is designed for compensating the faults in the actuators of chaotic systems and maintaining the acceptable system stability. We propose a state‐feedback model reference adaptive control scheme for unknown chaotic multi‐input systems. Only the dimensions of the chaotic systems are required to be known. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, new adaptive control laws are synthesized to accommodate actuator failures and system nonlinearities. An illustrative example is studied. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the design method. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive output feedback actuator failure compensation for a class of non‐linear systems

An adaptive compensation control scheme using output feedback is designed and analysed for a class of non‐linear systems with state‐dependent non‐linearities in the presence of unknown actuator failures. For a linearly parameterized model of actuator failures with unknown failure values, time instants and pattern, a robust backstepping‐based adaptive non‐linear controller is employed to handle the system failure, parameter and dynamics uncertainties. Robust adaptive parameter update laws are derived to ensure closed‐loop signal boundedness and small tracking errors, in general, and asymptotic regulation, in particular. An application to controlling the angle of attack of a non‐linear hypersonic aircraft dynamic model in the presence of elevator segment failures is studied and simulation results show that the developed adaptive control scheme has desired actuator failure compensation performance. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Three‐Position Swing Electromagnetic Actuator with an Integrated Eddy Current Brake for Suppression of the Operating Time and Improvement of the Stopping Accuracy

A closed‐loop control system is commonly used in electromagnetic actuators to ensure operating performance. However, this system frequently leads to high costs. We developed a swing electromagnetic actuator with an integrated eddy current brake to reduce the operating time and improve the stopping accuracy. The developed actuator is a three‐position cylindrical actuator moving within a ±120º angle without closed‐loop control. The rotor is composed of a bulk and thin metal laminations and the stator has three sets of pairs of coils. The rotor is stopped at an intermediate position by magnetic force generated by the coils. This paper describes the electromagnetic design and its evaluation by using an FEM simulation to predict its operating characteristics and measure its performance on a test bench. The superiority of our actuator design is verified by comparing these measurements. The operating time is reduced to one‐sixth of that of a laminated rotor and the over travel is compressed to zero. In addition, this actuator has the advantage that it is electrically robust against variations in the power supply.     

Adaptive compensation for infinite number of actuator failures with an application to flight control

In this paper, a new adaptive compensation control scheme is proposed for a class of nonlinear systems with unknown parameters and unknown actuator failures. The normal operation case and different failure cases of actuators are unified through a time‐varying model. By introducing a smooth function, an integrable auxiliary signal, and a bound estimation approach, the effect of failures is successfully compensated for, and the total number of failures is not restricted to be finite. It is shown that all closed‐loop signals are globally uniformly bounded, and the tracking error converges to zero asymptotically regardless of the possibly infinite number of actuator failures. An application to the longitudinal dynamic model of a twin otter aircraft is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis of primary-on-slider ultrasonic piezoelectric actuators and experiments on multidegree of motion freedom plane actuator

Recently, various machines and tools have been miniaturized, and with this trend, the size of an actuator becomes a very important factor. An ultrasonic actuator is different from other actuators using electromagnet force in the driving principle. The structures of an ultrasonic piezoelectric actuator is simple. An ultrasonic actuator converts the ultrasonic mechanical energy to mechanical thrust force by a friction force. Based on this idea, various ultrasonic actuators have been proposed and experimentally constructed. In this paper, the basic characteristics of a piezoelectric actuator are analyzed theoretically. The relationship between the thrust force and the weight force is clarified and verified by experiments. Various prototypes of plane ultrasonic piezoelectric actuators are constructed experimentally, and the fundamental characteristics are measured.     

Poling Conditions of Pre-Stressed Piezoelectric Actuators and Their Displacement

The poling procedure has always been the key issue in producing piezoelectric actuators with optimised performance. This is also true with the relatively new category of pre-stressed bender actuators, where mechanical bias achieved with a passive layer is introduced in the actuators during manufacturing. Due to these factors, the behaviour of the actuator under poling is different compared to its bulk counterparts. In this paper, two different thicknesses of commercial PZT 5A and PZT 5H materials were used in bulk actuators and pre-stressed benders realised by new method. Pre-stress was introduced by using a post-fired biasing layer utilising sintering shrinkage and difference in thermal expansion. The hysteresis loop of the actuators was measured under 0.5–7.0 MV/m electric fields at 25–125^∘C temperatures, providing information about their remnant polarisation and coercive field before poling. The results showed that high electric field and 25^∘C temperatures in poling provided higher remnant polarisation and coercive electric field than using 125^∘C temperature at poling. Difference was especially significant in coercive electric field values where up to 114.8% difference was obtained for PZT 5H bulk actuator and 65.9% for pre-stressed actuators. Higher coercive fields can be utilized as increased operating voltage range of piezoelectric devices. The differences in results obtained here and by others can be explained by the different pre-stress level, stronger clamping of the thicker passive layers of the RAINBOW and THUNDER actuators and passive ring area introducing high tensile stresses. The same conditions were used to pole the actuators, after which the displacement and dielectric constant of the actuators were measured. The displacement measurements showed that remnant polarisation has good correlation with displacement. This fact can be used in estimating pre-stressed actuator performance before actual poling. The dielectric constant measurements with a small signal after poling gave even better correlation than the remnant polarisation.     

Parameter‐dependent Lyapunov function‐based robust iterative learning control for discrete systems with actuator faults

This paper considers iterative learning control for a class of uncertain multiple‐input multiple‐output discrete linear systems with polytopic uncertainties and actuator faults. The stability theory for linear repetitive processes is used to develop control law design algorithms that can be computed using linear matrix inequalities. A class of parameter‐dependent Lyapunov functions is used with the aim of enlarging the allowed polytopic uncertainty range for successful design. The effectiveness and feasibility of the new design algorithms are illustrated by a gantry robot case study. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

XYΘ actuators using piezoelectric and electromagnetic actuators

Microactuators with multiple degrees of freedom, which can provide many benefits in precision engineering, are in demand for industrial applications. We propose two new actuators (Y‐type and Δ‐type) which can move in the x, y, and θ directions. They are combinations of piezoelectric and electromagnetic actuators. The proposed actuators realize high resolution via the piezoelectric actuators. We describe the structure and principle of the proposed actuators, and discuss their feasibility. A resolution of 70 nm in the x direction and of 0.5 μrad in the θ direction was obtained with the Y‐type actuator. A resolution of 90 nm in the x direction and of 0.6 μrad in the θ direction was obtained with the Δ‐type actuator. © 2000 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 131(4): 44–51, 2000     

Studies on thrust characteristics of high‐thrust spiral motor

Linear actuators are used in various industrial applications. Conventional linear actuators are a combination of a rotational motor and a ball screw, a hydraulic actuator, or a linear motor. However, these actuators have some demerits. This paper proposes a spiral motor (SPRM) that comprises a helical stator and a helical mover. Owing to its helical structure, the SPRM can be expected to show better performance compared to the conventional linear actuator. A stator and a mover are shown in Figs. 1 and 2, respectively. Helical motion is obtained by this motor and only linear motion is extracted by canceling rotational motion at the end effector. There are two types of SPRMs. One has no ball screw on the output axis, while the other has a ball screw. The former can be used in a direct drive system. However, the gap between the stator and the mover should be controlled because the motor is a magnetic levitation system without a ball screw. Further, the motor requires two three‐phase inverters. The other motor is easy to control because it does not require gap control. However, the motor is inferior to the first motor with regard to position control since the friction in this motor is larger. In this study, a prototype of the SPRM is developed. The prototype constructed is a motor with a ball screw. In this motor, the stator and mover are made of block cells. The stator block is shown in Fig. 3 and the mover block is shown in Fig. 4. The prototype of the SPRM shown in Fig. 5, is developed by using these two blocks. An experiment is conducted to examine the driving of the SPRM. The experimental result is shown in Fig. 6. From this result, it is evident that comprising a helical stator and a helical mover can generate linear motion. Another experiment is conducted for measuring the thrust characteristic of the motor. The result obtained is shown in Fig. 7. From the figure, the thrust constant of the spiral motor, K_f, is obtained as 538.0 N/A. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 177(2): 58–64, 2011; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21168     

Active fault‐tolerant control system design with trajectory re‐planning against actuator faults and saturation: Application to a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle

During the past 30 years, various fault‐tolerant control (FTC) methods have been developed to address actuator or component faults for various systems with or without tracking control objectives. However, very few FTC strategies establish a relation between the post‐fault reference trajectory to track and the remaining resources in the system after fault occurrence. This is an open problem that is not well considered in the literature. The main contribution of this paper is in the design of a reconfigurable FTC and trajectory planning scheme with emphasis on online decision making using differential flatness. In the fault‐free case and on the basis of the available actuator resources, the reference trajectories are synthesized so as to drive the system as fast as possible to its desired setpoint without violating system constraints. In the fault case, the proposed active FTC system (AFTCS) consists in synthesizing a reconfigurable feedback control along with a modified reference trajectories once an actuator fault has been diagnosed by a fault detection and diagnosis scheme, which uses a parameter‐estimation‐based unscented Kalman filter. Benefited with the integration of trajectory re‐planning using the flatness concept and the compensation‐based reconfigurable controller, both faults and saturation in actuators can be handled effectively with the proposed AFTCS design. Advantages and limitations of the proposed AFTCS are illustrated using an experimental quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle testbed.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental Study of DBD Plasma Actuator with Combination of AC and Nanosecond Pulse Voltage

In the last decade, dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuators using a combination voltage of AC and a nanosecond pulse have been studied. The combined‐voltage‐driven plasma actuator increases the body force effect, including wall jet and flow suction, by overlapping the nanosecond pulse voltage, while the DBD plasma actuator driven by nanosecond pulses is a flow control actuator generating compression waves due to pulse heating, which makes it possible to supply an active flow control at a high‐speed flow, reported as up to Mach 0.7. In this study, a DBD plasma actuator driven by a combination voltage of sinusoidal AC and nanosecond pulse was experimentally investigated. The time‐averaged net thrust and cycle‐averaged power consumption of the actuator were characterized by using an electrical weight balance and the charge‐voltage cycle of a DBD plasma actuator, respectively. The plasma actuator thrust driven with the combination voltage showed increased thrust with increasing pulse repetition rate. The energy consumption of the actuator was controlled by varying the AC phase when the nanosecond pulse was applied. Therefore, the thrust and power consumption in the actuator were almost independently controlled by the pulse repetition rate and the pulse imposed phase.     

Switching‐based state tracking of model reference adaptive control systems in the presence of intermittent failures of all actuators

This paper investigates the state tracking problem for a class of model reference adaptive control systems with intermittent failures of all actuators. We consider the case that all actuators may suffer failures simultaneously. The concepts of failure frequency and unavailability rate are introduced to describe the failures. Because of the actuator failures, the error system is modeled as a switched system. Then, the notion of global practical stability of switched systems is presented, and sufficient conditions are provided to guarantee the global practical stability of the error system. An example of HiMAT vehicle and the simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed design method. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

自激励驱动的自走型直线超声电机

在已开发出的自走型直线超声电机基础上，介绍了一种基于自激励原理的无缆化驱动方案。论述了该自走型直线超声电机的结构设计和单相驱动原理，有有限元方法和激光扫描振动实验对该超声电机驱动端面能产生近似行波进行了验证，并说明利用自激励驱动的可行性，最后给出自激励驱动电路。自激励驱动使超声电机的驱动电源简化，对电机的小型化和低成本化有利，无缆化实现了电机驱动微型机器人的自如走行。     

Fundamental characteristics of a MEMS‐diaphragm actuator using a thermal expansion drive composed of a conductive polymer

Performance of a MEMS actuator using a thermal expansion drive of a conductive polymer (CP) is investigated by applying electricity to it. The actuator consists of a thin polymer diaphragm (5 mm diameter) and a thin CP (ion‐doped polythiophene) layer coated on the diaphragm surface. Polyimide (10 μm thickness) and PET (110 μm thickness) sheets were chosen as the diaphragm materials. The diaphragm is deflected by the thermal expansion of the CP by applying electricity to it. Merits of using the CP instead of metal are realizing flexible actuators and the applicability to a low‐heat‐resistant material diaphragm. The relationship between thickness of the CP layer (10–50 μm thickness) and electrical resistance (30–600 Ω) and the relationship between the input voltage (1–8 V) and the generated diaphragm displacement (several tens of micrometers) were investigated experimentally. These relationships were compared with those in the case of using the thermal expansion of a vapor‐deposited aluminum layer (0.1 μm thickness). The results of the investigation indicate that the diaphragm based on CP can produce the required displacement. In the case the CP‐layer‐based thermal expansion, however, larger input voltage than in the case of the aluminum‐layer‐based thermal expansion is needed to obtain the same displacement amplitudes. Therefore, the main problem concerning use of the CP‐based diaphragm is considered to be enhancing the electrical conductance of the CP layer. © 2014 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.