Characteristics of macrofibre composite-based microactuator

The authors have designed a new piezoelectric microactuator based on the macrofiber composite actuator; it has a 60 μm displacement, and a positioning accuracy at a submicron level. By adjusting the voltage to drive the actuator, the inductance probe detects displacement and transfers the information to the digital inductive mircometer to get the actual displacement. The voltage, displacement, resolution, hysteresis and creep of the microactuator were analysed. The results show that this new microactuator has a larger displacement and better linearity than conventional microactuators. This research is potentially valuable for the study of macrofibre composites in microactuation.