A piezoelectric motorization system for driving mechanical loads multi-dimensionally by an electronic circuitry is disclosed. The piezoelectric motorization system has a piezoelectric apparatus that is constructed by a mechanically flexible body that has multiple piezoelectric actuators attached its surfaces, where these actuators are controlled by an electronic circuitry. The mechanically flexible body has a finite structure with a sets of boundary conditions to determine its out-of-plane resonant modes. The electronic circuitry inject at least two sets of control signals into different groups of actuators at or near different resonant frequencies. Using these control signals, traveling waves can be generated on the piezoelectric apparatus to move mechanical loads placed on its surface. Or, the traveling waves are used to propel the piezoelectric apparatus for motorization. The moving direction and velocity are controlled and adjusted by amplitude ratio and phase difference among driving frequencies of control signals. The moving direction and velocity also is controlled by the size, shape and locations of piezoelectric actuators on the mechanically flexible body. Different combinations of bending and/or twisting modes are used to generate one-dimensional or two-dimensional movements. Finally, multiple piezoelectric apparatus can be placed on three orthogonal planes of a three-dimensional mass for three-dimensional motorization.

Provided is a piezo-actuated planar motor, comprising a planar substrate and a mover installed on the planar substrate, the piezo-actuated planar motor further comprising: at least one piezo driving leg which is disposed on said mover so as to drive said mover to move on said planar substrate omnidirectionally in the plane. Further provided is a method of driving a planar motor by using piezo driving legs, which implements three movement modes, i.e., a sliding mode, a walking mode, and a fine tuning mode. The sliding mode has the fastest speed of motion, the walking mode has a relatively slow speed of motion but has a high positioning accuracy and a high-accuracy tracking capability, and the fine tuning mode is used for the adjustment of the planar motor at a final position and has the highest positioning accuracy. The piezo-actuated planar motor of the present invention can effectively overcome the defects of a small movement range and a low speed in a conventional nano-positioning platform.

The present disclosure provides a device for applying a high frequency, high voltage field to a substance, such as wine or liquor. The high voltage, high frequency field causes electrochemical reactions that change the chemical make-up of said substance. This is done by running the high voltage, high frequency field to two separately insulated electrodes that are placed parallel to each other within the device.

A hybrid actuator is provided in which a piezoelectric element and an actuator are incorporated with each other. The hybrid actuator includes: a housing; a stator secured to the housing and having a coil; a vibrator having a permanent magnet configured to vibrate due to a mutual electromagnetic force with the stator; an elastic member configured to elastically support the vibrator relative to the housing; a piezoelectric element attached to one surface of the housing; and an F-PCB (flexible printed circuit board) applying an electric current to the piezoelectric element and the coil inside the housing. A part of the F-PCB extends outside the housing. Input terminals are formed on the part of the F-PCB which extends outside the housing. The input terminals are configured to receive a vibration signal and an audio signal so that the hybrid actuator can reproduce both the vibration signal and the audio signal.

A novel piezo-driven cell injection system with force feedback overcomes the unsatisfied force interaction between the pipette needle and embryos in conventional position control. By integrating semiconductor strain-gage sensors for detecting the cell penetration force and the micropipette relative position in real time, the developed cell microinjection system features high operation speed, confident success rate, and high survival rate. The effectiveness of the developed cell injection system is experimentally verified by penetrating zebrafish embryos. The injection of 100 embryos are conducted with separate position control and force control. Results indicate that the force control enables a survival rate of 86%, which is higher than the survival rate of 82% produced by the position control in the same control environment. The experimental results quantitatively demonstrate the superiority of force control over conventional position control for the first time.

In object to provide a unit of piezoelectric element having a preferable bending strength and preferably used as a part of a driving unit, a unit of piezoelectric element comprising: a multilayer piezoelectric element, having internal electrodes laminated having a piezoelectric body layer in-between and a pair of external electrodes formed on side surfaces extending along laminating direction and electrically connected to the internal electrodes, a wiring part connected to the external electrodes via a solder part, wherein a solder is solidified, a resin part, joining one end surface in the laminating direction of the multilayer piezoelectric element and a mounting surface of a connection member placed to face the one end surface, wherein the resin part is continuous from the one end surface and the mounting surface to the solder part; and the resin part covers the solder part, is provided.

A positioning apparatus comprises a base element provided for fastening to a robot, a base movably supported at the base element, and a piezoactuator by which the base is movable in a direction relative to the base element. A second piezoactuator is provided by which a counterweight is simultaneously movable in an opposite direction.

A piezoelectric stepper drive includes a piezoelectric drive apparatus with at least two drive sections, each acted upon by at least two piezoelectric actuators, and a driven member which is advanced by at least one of the drive sections when control voltages are applied to the actuators. The drive apparatus is configured approximately in the shape of a triangle, at the tip of which the drive sections are arranged. At least one of the drive sections is biased against the driven member, in the absence of control voltages applied to the actuators, such that the drive section blocks advance of the driven member, where each of the drive sections is mounted individually resilient relative to a base of the triangle.

Provided is an active positioning encoder, comprising: a display device, said display device being used for displaying at least a first pattern; a reading device, said reading device comprising at least a first read head, the first read head being used for reading the first pattern in order to obtain an image signal; a signal processing device, said signal processing device performing signal processing on the image signal of the first read head in order to determine the single-dimensional positioning of the first read head relative to the display device.

A wire handling tool includes a frame, a first actuator having a proximal end attached to the frame and a first distal end including a first grasping member for grasping a wire. The first distal end is configured to move along a first axis, wherein movement of the first distal end causes movement of the grasped wire along the first axis. The wire handling tool includes a controller for controlling the first actuator according to a wire feeding sequence to move the wire along the first axis.