Development of a Galfenol Magnetostrictive Linear Motor with Low Driving Voltage

A Galfenol driven miniature linear motor was developed in this paper. The proposed motor realized the micro stepping motion and based on the inertia impact and friction force. At first, the principle of impact driving mechanism was introduced, with the discussion of the structure of the given motor. Then, the analysis of the motor’s impedance property and shaft displacement was presented by simulations. At last, the performance of the proposed motor was tested by experiments. The experimental results demonstrate that the micro motor is capable of 8 nm resolution over the travel range of 30 mm. The maximum step-size is 2.1 μm. The maximum operation frequency is 500 Hz. A high accuracy displacement was achieved under 0-3 V low driving voltage. The results imply that the given motor is highly promising for use in nano-scale positioning system.