By combining new robot control systems with piezoelectric motors and micromechanics, we propose creating micromechanical systems which are small, cheap and completely autonomous. We have fabricated small - a few millimeters in diameter - piezoelectric motors using ferroelectric thin films and consisting of two pieces: a stator and a rotor. The stationary stator includes a piezoelectric film in which we induce bending in the form of a traveling wave. Anything which sits atop the stator is propelled by the wave. A small glass lens placed upon the stator becomes the spinning rotor. Using thin films of PZT on silicon nitride memebranes, various types of actuator structures have been fabricated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/5989 |
| Date | 01 February 1991 |
| Creators | Flynn, Anita M., Tavrow, Lee S., Bart, Stephen F., Brooks, Rodney A. |
| Source Sets | M.I.T. Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 20 p., 3524995 bytes, 1374019 bytes, application/postscript, application/pdf |
| Relation | AIM-1269 |
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