An Ultrasonic Actuator with Electrical Preload Control Function for Force-Feedback Interface

摘要

An ultrasonic motor (USM) has a possibility of effectively reproducing realistic feelings of hardness and roughness on a virtual object in a haptic virtual reality system due to its rapid response characteristic. However, an ordinal USM does not have the state following an external force, because a stator vibrator is preloaded to a rotor or a slider and a breaking force always occurs. Moreover, it is hard to arbitrarily change the preload of a USM during operation. In this study, an ultrasonic actuator with clutch, which can electrically control a preload, was developed by piezoelectric actuators and a mechanical amplifier. As an experimental result, a rotor was able to be states of holding, rotation and free by widely controlling the generation of driving and braking torques.