Development of an Optimally Designed Voice-Coil Actuator

Voice coil actuators are extensively employed in precision motion applications with benefits including compact form factor, linear force behavior, and smooth operation. Adopting an optimal approach in the design of this actuator can reduce the size, reduce manufacturing and assembly costs, and increase its bandwidth. Besides, having a model that captures nonlinear aspects of the actuator behavior, could play a significant role in The development of high-performance controllers. In this paper, an optimally-designed voice coil actuator is developed and characterized. Main actuator characteristics such as force constant and open-loop frequency response are measured. A comprehensive modeling of the various subsystems is then carried out and the empirical results illustrate the accuracy of the proposed model.