ME 2040

Fundamentals of Mechatronics

Mechanical actuators, Electrical

actuators, Hydraulic and Pneumatic
actuators
OR

Actuators in General !
 Actuators

 …physical devices that transform electrical, chemical, or

thermal energy into mechanical energy…
 Mechanical
 hydraulic / pneumatic
 electrical
 Other
• artificial muscles
• shape memory alloys
• polymers
• and many more . . .

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 Mechanical Actuators

 Converts rotary motion to linear motion and vice versa

Rack and Pinion Screw Drive

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 Hydraulic
 Uses hydraulic oils under pressure to do work
 Higher pressures (1000-3000 psi)
 great power-to-weight
 messy/high maintenance

Hydraulic Press Heavy Equipment

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Hydraulic motor

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 Pneumatic

 Uses compressed air to do work

 Lower pressures (60-100 psi)
 Delicate
 Are faster
 Have components that are lighter in weight

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 Pneumatic - McKibben Air Muscles

 Contractile or extensional devices operated by pressurized air

filling a pneumatic bladder

OctArm
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 Soft Robotics

Silicone robot tentacle

https://learn.adafruit.com/silicone-robo-tentacle

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 Electrical Actuators

 Easy to control

 From mW to MW

 Normally high velocities 1000 - 10000 rpm

 Accurate servo control

 Ideal torque for driving

 Excellent efficiency

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 Electric actuators

 Mainly rotating but also

linear ones are available

 linear movement with

gear or with real linear
motor

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 Electrical Actuator Types

 DC-motors

 brushless DC-motors

 asynchronous motors

 synchronous motors

 reluctance motors (stepper motors)

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 DC-Motors

 simple, cheap

 easy to control

 1W - 1kW

 can be overloaded

 brushes wear

 limited overloading
on high speeds

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Electric Motors - Permanent Magnet DC

Lorentz force

• back emf
• commutation

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 Control of brush-type dc Motor

 The speed of the dc motor depends on the current through the

armature coil

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 Control of brush-type dc Motor

 Switching the transistor ON/OFF generates a PWM signal

 Diode provides a reverse path when motor acts as a generator
 Can only drive the motor in one direction

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 Control of brush-type dc Motor

 H-Bridge circuit
 Enables bi-directional control

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 Control of brush-type dc Motor

 H-Bridge circuit with logic gates

 One input controls the switching and one input controls the
direction

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 Brushless DC electric motor

 Synchronous motor powered by a DC

electric source via an integrated
inverter/switching power supply.

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Pittman Motor Data Sheet
Pittman Motor Data Sheet
 AC motors

 Single-phase
 Induction
 Synchronous

 Poly-phase
 Induction
 Synchronous

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 Single-phase induction motor
 Has a Cu/Al squirrel cage rotor
 No external electrical connections to the rotor
 Windings are on the stator
 With alternating field in the stator windings e.m.f is induced
on the rotor generating a current flow in the rotor
 Initially no net torque – not self-starting
 Extra winding is used to initiate starting
 Speed depends on ac freq.
 Rotor speed ~ 1 – 3 % less than synchronous speed – SLIP

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 Three-phase induction motor

 Similar to single-phase ind. – but stator has 3 windings 120°

apart
 Each connected to one phase of the supply
 Feld rotation is smoother than in single phase
 Capable of self-starting
 Direction can be interchanged by swapping any two supply
lines

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 Synchronous motors

 Similar but with a permanent magnet rotor

 Rotor follows the field produced by stator
 Freq. of rotation is equal to supply freq.
 Provides precise speed
 Not self starting

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 Servo motor

 Servomotor is a rotary actuator that allows for precise control

of angular position, velocity and acceleration.
 The servo expects a pulse every 20 ms in order to gain
correct information about the angle.
 The width of the servo pulse dictates the range of the
servo's angular motion.

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 Electric Motors - Stepper

 Stepper motors are another kind of motors that do not require

feedback
 A stepper motor can be incrementally driven, one step at a
time, forward or backward
 Stepper motor characteristics are:
 Number of steps per revolution (e.g. 200 steps per revolution = 1.8° per
step)
 Max. number of steps per second (“stepping rate” = max speed)
 Step sequence can be very fast, the resulting motion appears to
be very smooth
 Typical applications: printers, tape and disk drives, machine
tools, process control, X-Y recorders or motion, and robotics

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Electric Motors - Stepper

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 Linear motors

 Stator and rotor "unrolled" so that instead of producing a

torque (rotation) it produces a linear force along its length.

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Tubular Linear Motor
Piezoelectric motor

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Electric Motors - Gearboxes

Inertia of load can be dominated

by the inertia of the rotor

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 Artificial Muscles - Shape Memory Alloys

 Nickel Titanium - Nitinol

 Crystalographic phase transformation from Martesite to

Austenite

 Contract (when heated) 5-7% of length - 100 times greater

effect than thermal expansion

 Relatively high forces

 About 1 Hz

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Artificial Muscles - Shape Memory Alloys

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 Artificial Muscles - New Technologies

 Electro-active polymers
 store electrons in large molecules

 change length of chemical bonds

 deform ~ V

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 Artificial Muscles

 Mechanical properties: elastic modulus, tensile strength,

stress-strain, fatigue life, thermal and electrical conductivity

 Thermodynamic issues: efficiency, power and force density,

power limits

 Packaging: power supply/delivery, device construction,

manufacturing, control, integration

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 Artificial Muscles - New Technologies

 Biological Muscle Proteins

 myosin – generate muscle contraction by walking on actin filaments

 kinesin – use a track to move

• move along microtubule (MT) filaments

Kinesin motor protein

moving along a MT
filament
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 New Technologies

 Comb drive
 Capacitive actuators, often used as linear actuators that utilize
electrostatic forces that act between two electrically conductive
combs.
 micro- or nanometer scale

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 New Technologies

 Bimorph
 A bimorph is a cantilever that consists of two active layers:
piezoelectric and metal.
 These layers produce a displacement via:
• thermal activation (a temperature change causes one layer to
expand more than the other).
• electrical activation as in a piezoelectric bimorph (electric field
causes one layer to extend and the other layer to contract).

Bimorph
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