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Simple millimeter-scale robot using Pb(Zr, Ti) piezoelectric thin film actuator on titanium substrate

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Abstract

We have developed a piezoelectric-driven millimeter-scale robot with a simple structure. This millimeter-scale robot, which consists of a titanium (Ti) body and front/back legs integrated with a Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 (PZT) piezoelectric thin film actuator, is driven by using mechanical resonance. To simply fabricate the millimeter-scale robot, the PZT thin film was directly deposited on an H-shaped Ti substrate by radio frequency magnetron sputtering and the shape of the robot was completed by plastic deformation of the monolithic Ti substrate. We obtained the transverse piezoelectric coefficient d 31 of the deposited PZT thin film was −21.3 pm/V, which was sufficient for driving the fabricated millimeter-scale robot with a low driving voltage ≤10 V. We also evaluated the resonant characteristics of the fabricated robot and confirmed that the front/back legs of robot were oscillated in primary and secondary resonance modes at around 4.5 and 11 kHz, respectively. We demonstrated that the millimeter-scale robot with asymmetric structure in the front-back direction was controlled by changing driving voltage conditions and a bending angle formed by the front/back legs. The moving speed of the millimeter-scale robot was 13.6 cm/s by applying negative unipolar voltage of 10 Vpp at 10.6 kHz when the bending angle was set to 109°. We experimentally confirmed that the millimeter-scale robot can be driven forward and backward by optimizing the shape of the robot and mechanical resonant modes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe, Hyogo, 657-8501, Japan

    Hirotaka Hida, Yuki Morita, Fumiya Kurokawa, Yuichi Tsujiura & Isaku Kanno

Authors
  1. Hirotaka Hida
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  2. Yuki Morita
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  3. Fumiya Kurokawa
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  4. Yuichi Tsujiura
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  5. Isaku Kanno
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Correspondence to Hirotaka Hida.

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Hida, H., Morita, Y., Kurokawa, F. et al. Simple millimeter-scale robot using Pb(Zr, Ti) piezoelectric thin film actuator on titanium substrate. Microsyst Technol 22, 1429–1436 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-016-2882-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-016-2882-7

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