A Langevin type piezoelectric tracked travelling system

A novel tracked travelling system driven by a Langevin piezoelectric transducer is proposed. It has advantages of large driving force, high mechanical integration, well reliability, requiring no lubrication, and having the potential application in planetary exploration. The tracked travelling system comprises of an actuating mechanism and a track. The actuating mechanism includes a Langevin piezoelectric transducer and two annular parts symmetrically placed at two ends of the transducer. The track is pressed in contact to the outer surfaces of the annular parts. Traveling rotating waves are generated in two annular parts, and then the microscopic elliptical motions at the outer surface of the annular parts will be generated to drive the track to move by friction force. The actuating mechanism is analyzed by using FEM, and the simulation results are compared with the vibration measurements results. And then the prototype of the tracked travelling system was assembled and investigated experimentally for its performance. The maximum average velocities to bi-directional movements were 72mm/s and 61.5mm/s under the excitation voltage of 500Vpp and frequency of 35.1 kHz, respectively.