Monolithic piezoelectric push-pull actuators for inertial drives

In many miniature systems for positioning and especially in microrobotics the assembly of the components becomes difficult. At sizes of systems of a few cm/sup 2/ not only the assembly becomes more difficult, downscaling also means that single parts become more fragile and individually more difficult to fabricate. We propose a method which allows to integrate several piezoelectric actuators of one or two degrees of freedom within the same bulk material, permitting to fabricate tiny positioning systems and microrobots at a mesoscopic scale. The principle of the actuator is presented, followed by some remarks on dimensioning and fabrication. Finally, some application examples are given.