Compact, Lightweight, and Efficient Piezo-Actuation Chain for aeronautical applications

Many past and on-going studies are focusing on the use of piezo-actuators for aeronautical applications. One of the trendiest topics is the use of such devices for active flow control in aircraft, in order to reduce fuel consumption and noise. However, the implementation of such systems in aircraft suffer a lack of maturity with respect to aeronautical constraints, which are: high efficiency, compactness, and lightweight. In general, the actuators are composed of ceramics integrated in a metallic shell, which makes them heavy. For driving the actuators, the power amplifiers employed are usually linear amplifiers, which have a poor efficiency, leading to bulky designs due to large heatsinks. This paper presents recent developments that have been made to cope with these issues in order to obtain a piezo-actuation chain suitable for aeronautical applications.