A geometrically-amplified in-plane piezoelectric actuator for mesoscale robotic systems

Piezoelectric materials are an attractive option for electromechanical transduction on the mesoscale due to their intrinsic high force production, large bandwidth, and favorable scaling characteristics. However, the small displacements they inherently produce are typically too small to be directly used in robotic systems, and thus displacement amplification is needed. Here we present a piezoelectric actuator that uses geometric amplification to achieve 20 × the nominal piezoelectric displacement. Actuator performance is described in terms of blocked force (20 mN), displacement (115 μm), bandwidth (3 kHz), and power density (172 W/kg). The actuator is fabricated using printed circuit MEMS, an emerging mesoscale manufacturing paradigm. Expected applications include locomotion for terrestrial crawling robots and flapping wing micro-air vehicles.