High throughput experimentation for the development of new piezoelectric ceramics

Piezoelectric ceramics based on the perovskite Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ (PZT) system are widely used as sensors and actuators. The toxicity of lead has motivated research in the field of alternative environmentally friendly lead-free materials. Lead-free piezoelectric ceramics are numerous and in comparison to PZT poorly investigated. The performance of PZT cannot yet be achieved by any lead-free material. Thus High Throughput Experimentation (HTE) shall be applied to discover new lead-free piezoelectric ceramics. In the present study a parallel solid state synthesis method was established for bulk ceramics. Libraries consisting of chemically diverse oxides are produced via the mixed-oxide route. Subsequently, classical piezoelectric parameters such as ɛ, d₃₃ and Curie temperature are screened. The high throughput route, which allows the synthesis and characterisation of over one hundred samples per week, has to be validated with PZT samples. The morphotropic phase boundary was clearly identified and dielectric measurement shows excellent results. The method may be extended to lead-free materials.     

Adaptive attenuation of unknown and time‐varying narrow band and broadband disturbances

In many classes of applications like active vibration control and active noise control, the disturbances can be characterized by their frequency content and their location in a specific region in the frequency domain. The disturbances can be of narrow band type (simple or multiple) or of broad band type. A model can be associated to these disturbances. The knowledge of this model allows to design an appropriate control system in order to attenuate (or to reject) their effect upon the system to be controlled. The attenuation of disturbances by feedback is limited by the Bode Integral and the ‘water bed’ effect upon the output sensitivity function. In such situations, the feedback approach has to be complemented by a ‘feedforward disturbance compensation’ requiring an additional transducer for obtaining information upon the disturbance. Unfortunately, in most of the situations, the disturbances are unknown and time‐varying and therefore an adaptive approach should be considered. The generic term for adaptive attenuation of unknown and time‐varying disturbances is ‘adaptive regulation’ (known plant model, unknown, and time‐varying disturbance model). The paper will review a number of recent developments for adaptive feedback compensation of multiple unknown and time‐varying narrow band disturbances and for adaptive feedforward compensation of broad band disturbances in the presence of the inherent internal positive feedback caused by the coupling between the compensator system and the measurement of the image of the disturbance. Some experimental results obtained on a relevant active vibration control system will illustrate the performance of the various algorithms presented. Some open research problems will be mentioned in the conclusion. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Manoeuvring and vibration reduction of a flexible spacecraft integrating optimal sliding mode controller and distributed piezoelectric sensors/actuators

This investigation is to apply optimal sliding mode (OSM) control theory and distributed piezoelectric sensor/actuator technology to vibration control of a flexible spacecraft. An approximate analytical dynamic model of a slewing flexible spacecraft with surface‐bonded piezoelectric sensors/actuators is developed using Hamilton's principle with discretization by assumed model method. To satisfy pointing requirements and simultaneously suppress vibration, two separate control loops are adopted. The first uses the piezoceramics as sensors and actuators to actively suppress certain flexible modes by designing a positive position feedback (PPF) compensators that add damping to the flexible structures in certain critical modes in the inner feedback loop; then a second feedback loop is designed using OSM control to slew the spacecraft. The OSM controller minimizes the expected value of a quadratic objective function consisting of only the states with the constraints that the error states always remain on the intersection of sliding surfaces. The advantage in this method is that the vibration reduction and attitude control are achieved separately in the two separate feedback loops, allowing the pointing requirements and simultaneous vibrations suppression to be satisfied independently of one another. An additional attraction of the design method is that the selection of PPF gain is determined by introducing a cost function to be minimized by the feedback gains which are subject to the stability criterion at the same time, such that the feedback gains are selected in a more systematical way to avoid the arbitrary selecting of feedback gains. The proposed control strategy has been implemented on a flexible spacecraft, which is a hub with a cantilever flexible beam appendage and can undergo a single axis rotation. Both analytical and numerical results are presented to show the theoretical and practical merits of this approach. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic modeling and adaptive robust boundary control of a flexible robotic arm with 2‐dimensional rigid body rotation

This paper investigates the control of a single‐link flexible robot manipulator with a tip payload appointed to rotate about 2 perpendicular axes in space. The control objective is to regulate the rigid body rotation of the manipulator with guaranteeing the stability of its vibration in the presence of exogenous disturbances. To achieve this, a Lyapunov‐based control design procedure is used and accomplished in some steps. First, the partial differential equation (PDE) dynamic model governing the rigid‐flexible hybrid motion of the arm is derived by applying Hamilton's principle. Next, based on the developed PDE model, an adaptive robust boundary control is established using the Lyapunov redesign approach. To this end, an adaptation mechanism is proposed so that the robust boundary control gains are dynamically updated online and there is no need for prior knowledge of disturbance upper bounds. The actuators and sensors are fully implemented at the arm boundary without using distributed actuators or sensors. Furthermore, in order to avoid control errors resulting from the spillover, control design is directly based on infinite‐dimensional PDE model without resorting to model truncation. Simulation results illustrate the efficacy of the considered method.     

An Overview of Rapidly Prototyped Piezoelectric Actuators and Grain-Oriented Ceramics

Rapid prototyping (RP) has been used to fabricate a series of piezoelectric actuators, including spiral and tube actuators, to study the actuation mechanism in these geometries, and to obtain enhanced properties. PZT spiral actuators showed large displacement in mm range, and moderate blocking force. Unimorph spirals (PZT/metal shim) and dual-material (piezoelectric/electrostrictive) PMN-PT spirals were also prototyped and characterized. Tube actuators with inward and outward wall curvature showed slight improvement in axial and radial displacements compared to conventional straight-walled tube actuators. In order to improve the performance of ceramic actuators with polycrystalline microstructures, grain-oriented ceramics of bismuth titanate, lead metaniobate, and PMN-PT were investigated. Texturing was achieved by incorporating anisometric seeds into RP feedstock, aligning them during fabrication, and growing the seeds (templates) at elevated temperatures. Synthesis of anisometric seeds and pertinent processing conditions of the textured ceramics are presented. The feasibility of making net shape single crystal components was also explored. Single crystals of 0.65PMN-0.35PT were grown in FDC components using embedded (111) and (110) SrTiO₃ seeds at 1250°C.     

THIN-FILM PIEZOELECTRIC ACTUATORS FOR BIO-INSPIRED MICRO-ROBOTIC APPLICATIONS

ABSTRACT

Biologically-inspired autonomous micro-robots have a variety of anticipated applications resulting from their unique scale and cooperative potential. To achieve locomotion comparable to biological systems, these micro-robots will require actuators substantially stronger than most existing MEMS actuation technologies. Piezoelectric thin-films can meet these specifications while drawing limited power and contributing little mass to micro-robotic systems. Theoretical actuation requirements for micro-robotic applications show that lead-zirconium-titanate (PZT) thin-film actuators can meet these requirements, including a new thin-film PZT lateral actuator developed by the United States Army Research Laboratory. Experimental results and a comparison to other common lateral actuation technologies are presented.     

一种新型三自由度微定位新方法

设计了一种基于压电陶瓷的三维微定位系统,通过12个空间分布的压电陶瓷微驱动器及4个工作平台的配合,实现X、Y、Z向的精密位姿控制.阐述了微定位原理、建立了载物台位姿与压电陶瓷微驱动器伸缩量之间的关系,介绍了系统误差来源以及微定位装置的构造.该研究可望为一些高科技领域的微进给提供实用新技术.     

Adaptive non-linear control with incomplete state information

Motivated by several recent adaptive non-linear control results which use either full-state or single-output feedback, we present two new adaptive design tools and show how they can be used to construct systematic design procedures for non-linear systems with incomplete state information. The main features of these procedures are illustrated on a simple third-order system. We also provide the geometric conditions which give a co-ordinate-free characterization of one of the partial-state-feedback forms to which these procedures are applicable.     

Piezoelectric and dielectric aging in pb(zr,ti)o3 thin films and bulk ceramics

Abstract

Piezoelectric and dielectric aging was studied in Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ (PZT) thin films and bulk ceramics. It was found that piezoelectric aging in thin films obeys the logarithmic time dependence with the relative aging rate much higher than that of the dielectric constant, while comparable aging rates of piezoelectric and dielectric constants were found in PZT ceramics. The origin of piezoelectric aging in PZT films was related to depolarization of the films rather than to suppression of the domain wall motion as was generally accepted for PZT ceramics.     

Thick piezoelectric coatings via modified sol-gel technique

Abstract

A hybrid sol-gel approach is reported for the deposition of high-quality composite PZT films of the thickness  1 μm. In this approach, the metallo-organic sol-gel precursor solution is mixed with fine piezoelectric powders and dip-coated onto Pt/Ti/SiO₂/Si substrates. Different organic viscous additives and deposition strategies were tried in order to deposit dense films with the properties approaching to those of bulk PZT. Using commercial PZT powder (TRS600FG) and ultrasonic mixing during deposition process, composite films having dielectric permittivity of ～2500 and saturation polarization ～35 μC/cm² were obtained. These values are intermediate between bulk ceramics and conventional sol-gel PZT films and therefore are indicative of good piezoelectric properties.     

The application of thick-film technology in C-MEMS

Laminated 3D structures made using low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) technology are practical for ceramic micro-electro-mechanical systems (C-MEMS). The sensors for mechanical quantities, and/or actuators, are fundamental parts of MEMS. Thick-film resistors can be used to sense the mechanical deformations, and thick-film piezoelectric materials can be used as electro-mechanical transducers in a C-MEMS structure. The integration of these thick-film materials on LTCC substrates is in some cases difficult to realise due to interactions with the rather glassy LTCC substrates. The subject of our work is an investigation of thick-film materials for electro-mechanical transducers (sensors and actuators) and their compatibility with LTCC substrates. Resistors made with commercial thick-film resistor materials for use as sensors on LTCC substrates have been investigated and evaluated. Ferroelectric ceramic materials based on solid solutions of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) with low firing temperatures around 850°C were developed for thick-film technology and evaluated on LTCC substrates.     

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.     

离散多时滞系统多故障模式下的H_∞容错控制

针对状态具有多个时滞的线性离散时间系统,基于Lyapunov稳定性理论和线性矩阵不等式方法（LMI）,分别采用无时滞记忆和有时滞记忆的状态反馈控制律,研究了执行器和传感器同时发生故障的情况下,离散多时滞系统的H∞容错控制问题。首先给出了系统没有干扰输入时存在无时滞记忆状态反馈容错控制器的一个充分条件;进一步,给出了在H∞扰动衰减指标约束下,系统存在无时滞记忆状态反馈H∞容错控制器的一个充分条件;并将结论推广到设计有时滞记忆的状态反馈容错控制器的情况。最后,仿真结果证明了所得H∞容错控制器设计方法的正确性和有效性。     

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.     

双重驱动双连杆柔性臂系统建模与抑振仿真

以宏微双重驱动的双连杆柔性臂机器人为背景，研究其建模与振动控制问题。通过忽略弹性振动对刚性运动的影响，用拉格朗日方程建立了对刚性运动模型，建立了由伺服电机和压电陶瓷共同作用下的振动方程，然后在刚性模型基础上叠加振动模型实现了对柔性臂的描述；这种模型的优点是系统总的模型简单且易于同时考虑多个振动模态。最后给出了压电陶瓷抑振过程的计算机仿真结果。     

Processing and Characterization of Micromachined Actuators Based on Proton-Irradiated P(VDF-TrFE) Copolymer

ABSTRACT

Copolymers of vinylidene fluoride and trifluoroethylene (P(VDF-TrFE)) have been used in a variety of devices such as transducers, actuators and sensors because of their good electroactive properties. Our earlier work showed that the electric field-induced strain in P(VDF-TrFE) copolymers can be enhanced significantly after high energy proton irradiation. In this study, micromachined actuators using proton-irradiated P(VDF-TrFE) copolymer as the active element have been fabricated. P(VDF-TrFE) 70/30 mol% copolymer film with a thickness of ～ 3.3 μ m was spin-coated on a silicon (Si) substrate. After etching the Si substrate by bulk micromachining, an actuator in the form of a suspended membrane was obtained. High energy proton irradiation with a dose of 107 Mrad was carried out to modify the properties of the copolymer film. The resonance characteristics of the actuators based on these irradiated copolymer films were studied and the displacement induced in the actuators was measured using a laser vibrometer. These types of polymer-based micromechanical systems have the advantages of being lightweight and have high toughness, thereby reducing the risk of breakage. By applying different d.c. bias voltages, the magnitude of the displacement induced in the actuator can be varied.     

Model reference adaptive control applied to electrical machines

This contribution reports about a discrete-time robust adaptive control strategy for single-input/single-output systems with arbitrary zeros. The adaptive algorithm is mainly based on a direct model reference method. The basic idea presented here is to divide the feedback law into a direct adaptive and a fixed part. By a certain choice of the non-adaptive controller parameters the robustness of the adaptive control loop with respect to unmodelled dynamics of the plant may be increased. The non-adaptive part of the controller can be reformulated as a bypass to the plant and will be denoted as the ‘correction network’ owing to its action on the open-loop zeros of the augmented plant. The new adaptive control strategy removes the major drawbacks of model reference control and is investigated for speed control of a DC motor and voltage control of a synchronous generator.     

Analysis and phase control of a piezoelectric traveling-wave ultrasonic motor for haptic stick application

An original modeling of a traveling-wave ultrasonic motor is established in order to provide a new torque control law for this category of actuators. In particular, self-driving is implemented, avoiding the classical drawbacks of frequency control, i.e., pull-out phenomenon. With such a robust control, force feedback application is available. Experimental results are obtained on an active haptic stick.     

Thin Film Piezoelectrics for MEMS

Thin film piezoelectric materials offer a number of advantages in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), due to the large motions that can be generated, often with low hysteresis, the high available energy densities, as well as high sensitivity sensors with wide dynamic ranges, and low power requirements. This paper reviews the literature in this field, with an emphasis on the factors that impact the magnitude of the available piezoelectric response. For non-ferroelectric piezoelectrics such as ZnO and AlN, the importance of film orientation is discussed. The high available electrical resistivity in AlN, its compatibility with CMOS processing, and its high frequency constant make it especially attractive in resonator applications. The higher piezoelectric response available in ferroelectric films enables lower voltage operation of actuators, as well as high sensitivity sensors. Among ferroelectric films, the majority of the MEMS sensors and actuators developed have utilized lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films as the transducer. Randomly oriented PZT films show piezoelectric e _31,f coefficients of about ?7 C/m² at the morphotropic phase boundary. In PZT films, orientation, composition, grain size, defect chemistry, and mechanical boundary conditions all impact the observed piezoelectric coefficients. The highest achievable piezoelectric responses can be observed in {001} oriented rhombohedrally-distorted perovskites. For a variety of such films, e _31,f coefficients of ?12 to ?27 C/m² have been reported.