Micropositioning
Categories
Micro piezo actuators
7 January 2008
Obtaining an integratable, compatible, low-cost mechanical energy source delivering a sufficient quantity of easilyaccessible energy within a miniaturised system has been the challenge of recent decades. Urgent demand for and interest in such systems will continue to increase with the development of portable microsystems.
MRF actuator for high force locking and damping applications
12 January 2010
The MRF actuators are new electromechanical components using Magneto Rheological Fluids (MRF). These smart fluids are characterized by their ability to change their rheological properties versus applied magnetic field. They can switch from a liquid to an almost solid body. This effect is reversible and operates within a few milliseconds. MRF are used to create controllable dampers, smart shock absorbers or brakes. After having developed several MRF actuators with an original characteristic (presenting a blocking force at rest), Cedrat Technologies was asked to develop a very challenging new MRF damper which goal can be summed up with a few words: “small size and high force”.
Nanometric positioning with piezo actuator and high stability strain gauges
19 June 2023
Many applications require long-term position stability, which relates to the notion of absolute precision over time. Until now, the long-term stability of strain gages (SG) for position measurement was questionable. Using its extensive know-how of strain gages integration and new instrumentation equipment, Cedrat Technologies has managed to demonstrate nanometric position stability of a closed-loop piezo-mechanism with integrated strain gages sensors. This technology opens a wide range of new possibilities for industrial, aeronautical, and space applications.
New actuators for aircraft and space applications
7 January 2008
Actuators are key elements of air- and spacecrafts. In the recent years the concept of the more-electric aircraft pushed the development of electrical actuation systems to substitute hitherto used hydraulic actuators in a broad range of applications such as flight control, landing gear and brake actuation.
New actuators for aircraft, space and military applications
19 June 2023
Actuation is used in all vehicles (aircraft, spacecraft, ground vehicles, etc) to control the position and/or attitude of the vehicle, and also to deploy or retract equipment, particularly for embedded optic instruments (cameras, telescopes). As such, the actuation is a safety critical system, particularly when humans could be catastrophically affected by failures within the system. Applications for actuation are flight controls, landing gear, rotors, suspension, antennae steering, valves, scanning, positioning using hydraulic, electromechanical, magnetic and piezo actuators. In aircraft there is a common goal to reduce the number of hydraulic actuators in vehicles and eventually to replace them completely by electric actuators.
Benefits from amplification of piezo actuation in inertial stepping motors
19 June 2023
Stepping Piezo Actuators (SPA) are long stroke linear piezoelectric actuators capable to reach long stroke (typ. >10mm) with an important resolution (typ. <1nm). It has been proposed to use Amplified Piezo Actuator into inertial stepper motor to build the SPA. This piezo motor showed good behaviour, with relatively high speed (up to 70mm/s), force (from 0.2N to 20N) and low consumption (down to 700mW).