A High Authority Piezoelectric Stack Actuator for Structurally Flexible Mechanisms

In this paper, the application of high control authority piezoelectric stack actuators, in short piezostack actuators, for active vibration control of long-reach robotic manipulators is studied. The idea is to include piezostack actuators in the base structure in order to strengthen its stiffness characteristics. A mechanism is designed for converting the force produced by a piezostack actuator to a bending moment. A flexible link actuated with a piezostack actuator is built and mathematically modeled. The solution of the governing partial differential equation with non-homogenous boundary conditions is obtained. A comparison between experimental frequency response of the system and its model is given. A control law using the Popov criterion is obtained and experimental results for closed-loop system are given.