Creating networks of “smart things” found in the physical world (e.g., with RFID, wireless sensor and actuator networks, embedded devices) on a large scale has become the goal of a variety of recent research activities. Rather than exposing real-world data and functionality through vertical system designs, we propose to make them an integral part of the Web. As a result, smart things become eas...

The piezoelectric stick-slip (PZT-SS) actuator is known to achieve motion with a theoretically unlimited range yet high resolution (several nanometers). In this type of actuator, friction plays an active role in producing a meaningful stick-slip motion. However, friction is a source of heat which may cause significant temperature rise, affecting the dynamic performance of the actuator. Our stud...

Smart actuators have many potential applications in various areas, so the development of novel actuation materials, with facile fabricating methods and excellent performances, are still urgent needs. In this work, a novel electromechanical bimorph actuator constituted by a graphene layer and a PVDF layer, is fabricated through a simple yet versatile solution approach. The bimorph actuator can d...

We present a high bandwidth piezoelectric-actuated mirror for length stabilization of an optical cavity. The actuator displays a transfer function with a flat amplitude response and greater than 135 masculine phase margin up to 200 kHz, allowing a 180 kHz unity gain frequency to be achieved in a closed servo loop. To the best of our knowledge, this actuator has achieved the largest servo bandwi...

Two novel devices, torsional actuator and torsional stepper motor, are described and their performance is investigated in detail. Both devices were designed to produce large angular displacement and large torque output from the piezoelectric d15 shear response. In the torsional actuator, the large displacement can be achieved due to built-in amplification of piezoelectric strain using the aspec...

The design and development of a smart monitoring and controlling system for household electrical appliances in real time has been reported in this paper. The system principally monitors electrical parameters of household appliances such as voltage and current and subsequently calculates the power consumed. The novelty of this system is the implementation of the controlling mechanism of applianc...

We propose an integral tracking control method for a piezoelectric actuator system. The proposed method achieves the output tracking without requiring any hysteresis observer or schemes to compensate the hysteresis effect. With the proposed control law, the system is converted into the standard singularly perturbed model. Using Tikhonov’s theorem, we guarantee that the tracking error can be red...

This paper presents a mathematical model for the vibration analysis of a three-component piezoelectric force sensor. The cubic theory of weakly nonlinear electroelasticity is applied to the model for describing the electromechanical coupling effect in the piezoelectric sensing elements which operate in thickness-shear and thickness-stretch vibration modes. Hamilton's principle is used to derive...

The active vibration suppression of a single flexible link manipulator using a piezoelectric actuator is investigated. For this purpose, a finite element (FE) model is developed for the modal and transient analysis of a cantilever beam and a flexible link manipulator. A proportional control strategy is employed in a FE model to adjust the voltage applied to the piezoelectric actuator so as to c...

In this paper a method for piezoelectric stack actuator control is proposed. In addition a brief discussion about the usage of the same methods for estimation of external force acting to the actuator in contact with environment is made. The method uses sliding mode framework to design both the observer and the controller based on an electromechanical lumped model of the piezoelectric actuator. ...