NSF Award
9861252
9861252<br/> This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the abatement of hysteresis in piezoelectric actuators. These devices lack of accuracy because of hysteresis, creep, and other nonlinearities. Maximum error due to hysteresis can be as much as 20-30% of the path covered if the actuators are not under closed-loop control. The Phase I approach is expected to compensate for this non-linearity and should reduce this error source by a factor of 100 or more compared to open loop performance.<br/> Piezoelectric actuators are critical in ultra-high precision machining such as diamond turning machines, in scanning probe microscopes, in lithography machines, and for a wide range of active vibration control and active chatter control systems. All of these applications are compromised to some extent, either in accuracy or in speed or both, by piezoelectric actuator hysteresis and creep.
