Design of high voltage full bridge driver for piezoelectric actuator for space applications

Actuation technology is one of the most critical technology in space applications. Piezoelectric actuator provides high speed operation, high force generation, overall low power consumption and most importantly very high resolution of displacement. Piezoelectric actuator is highly capacitive load and it requires very high voltage in terms of 150 volts, so design of drive amplifier is a challenging task. This paper describes design and simulation of full bridge driver for piezoelectric actuator to reposition mirror of telescope. The circuit is designed to have sufficient margins in device operations to avoid malfunctioning if any. The paper discusses circuit design, power calculation, loss analysis and overall efficiency analysis.