Dual piezoelectric beam robot: The effect of piezoelectric patches’ positions

Inspired from linear traveling wave ultrasonic motors, a dual piezoelectric beam robot is presented. It consists of an aluminum beam structure, with two non-collocated piezoelectric patches bonded on its surface. The aim of this article is to study the effect of the piezoelectric patches’ positions on the performance of the robot. For a given robot dimension, a finite element model developed in a previous work for the robot structure is verified experimentally here and then used to determine the optimal piezoelectric patches’ position. It has been found that locating the piezoelectric patches near the ends of the beam will lead to best performance, and that the traveling wave is mainly generated between the two patches. Two prototypes have been manufactured for this aim and have shown good agreement with simulation results.