Piezoelectric Actuation and Motors: An Overview of Nonlinearities, Control and Emerging Industrial Applications

Nanotechnology refers to the physics and control of particles at sub-nanometer dimensions, enabling atomic level manipulation, imaging and characterization. Manipulation of matter at this ultra-precision level has become ubiquitous in several genres of science and engineering, encompassing multi-faceted industrial applications ranging from biomedical to semiconductor physics. Piezoelectric ceramics have emanated to be the most promising nano-positioning actuators and plays a key role of precision mechatronic systems developed to manipulate objects over a large travel range with high torque, compact form factor, rapid response and accuracy down to a fraction of atomic radius. This research presents an overview of this interesting technology which is indispensable for accurate positioning applications highlighting upon the fundamentals of its operations, major non-linearities that hinder system performance, and control regimes to overcome the bottlenecks. The study also bridges the gap between the scientific phenomenon of piezoelectric technology and its industrial application through a comprehensive review of piezoelectric motors to highlight its importance in positioning applications, along with state-of-the-art usage of this exciting actuation principle.