Drive signals for maximizing the velocity of piezoelectric inertia motors

Piezoelectric inertia motors have a simple construction and are controlled by a single driving signal. This allows for miniaturization and low-cost production. One of the main questions to be answered during the design process of a piezoelectric inertia motor is which electrical excitation signal yields optimum motor characteristics. Three signals and their variants are widely used in the literature: sawtooth, parabolic and cycloidic signals. Within this paper, we propose to use a rigid body model of a simple inertia motor to predict the dependance of the motor characteristics on the movement pattern of the driving element. The advantages and the disadvantages of three different drive signals that maximize the motor velocity are discussed.