A Novel Reciprocating Annular Piezoelectric Actuator: Design, Analysis and Experimental Evaluation

In this paper, an annular piezoelectric actuator which can realize reciprocating motion is proposed to provide power for deep-sea bionic system. The actuator adopts a fully open structure, which does not need to consider the problems of sealing and pressure resistance caused by deep-sea pressure. Compared with the DC motor used in traditional underwater propeller, the structure is simpler. At the same time, the actuator is a single-mode actuator with simple control. By using piezoelectric ceramics, the second-order in-plane bending vibration of the stator is excited to drive the rotor to move back and forth along the inner diameter of the stator. A prototype is manufactured and a series of experiments are carried out to reveal its working performance, including the load characteristics of annular piezoelectric actuator, the relationship between swing frequency and driving frequency, and the relationship between swing frequency and voltage. The maximum load of the actuator is 0.2N, the optimal driving frequency is 1235Hz, and the swing frequency is directly proportional to the voltage.