A vibration wave motor comprises a vibrator including a piezoelectric element and a vibrating body, a friction member including a first surface configured to come into contact with the vibrator, and a second surface, which is a surface on the opposite side of the first surface, the vibrator and the friction member moving relative to each other in a driving direction by a vibration generated by the vibrator, a supporting member configured to support the friction member on the second surface side; and a pressure member configured to bring the vibrator and the friction member into pressure contact with each other. A fixing portion configured to fix the friction member to the supporting member is provided in the friction member. The vibrator can move to a position where at least part of the vibrator and the fixing portion overlap each other in a pressure direction of the pressure member.

A piezoelectric material which is low in load on the environment, and also satisfies both the requirements of a high piezoelectric constant and a high mechanical quality factor. The piezoelectric material comprises a plurality of crystal grains containing Ba, Ca, Ti, Zr, Mn, and O. An average equivalent circle diameter of the crystal grains is not smaller than 1.0 μm and not larger than 10 μm. The crystal grains include crystal grains A each having a first domain with a width of not smaller than 300 nm and not larger than 800 nm, and crystal grains B each having a second domain with a width of not smaller than 20 nm and not larger than 50 nm.

The invention relates to a piezoelectric motor with bending travelling wave, comprising a rotary shaft (4) connected to a rotor (3), a piezoelectric element (2) attached to a vibrating stator (1), and a decoupling web (5) for attaching the vibrating stator to a mounting (7). The mounting (7) is mechanically connected to a base (9) by means of at least one deformable element (10) and at least one piezoelectric actuator (11), so that the support can be deformed angularly relative to the base in order to rotate the shaft when the vibrating stator is no longer electrically powered. The motor is particularly suitable for applications that require micrometre or nanometre accuracies, for example in positioning tools in industrial processes, precise medical robotics or optical applications.

A piezoelectric ultrasonic motor including: a columnar body having two opposite bottom surface portions and a plurality of side surface portions surrounding a region between the two bottom surface portions, and having a through hole that penetrates between the two bottom surface portions; a driving shaft inserted through the through hole of the columnar body; and a flexible printed circuits (FPC) on which a plurality of sheet-like piezoelectric elements are mounted, wherein the FPC has an FPC main body bringing the plurality of piezoelectric elements into contact respectively with the plurality of side surface portions of the columnar body and wound around the columnar body, and can supply driving electric power to the plurality of piezoelectric elements.

A contact body that makes it possible to easily verify whether or not the resin has been properly impregnated in the pores. A metallic sintered body having a plurality of pores, as a main body, is in contact with a vibration element in a vibration actuator. The contact body includes a sliding portion that has a sliding surface in contact with the vibration element, and a non-sliding portion adjacent to the sliding portion and not in contact with the vibration element. The non-sliding portion is provided with a resin lump containing hard particles and resin, and the resin lump is formed to be lower in height in a vertical direction than the sliding surface. In the sliding portion, part of hard particles and resin is exposed on the sliding surface.

An ultrasonic motor is provided that includes a stator including first and second piezoelectric elements provided on a first main surface of a vibrator having a plate shape, a rotor in direct or indirect contact with a second main surface of the vibrator, and a wiring member connected to the first and second piezoelectric elements. Moreover, the wiring member includes first and second connection members connected to the first and second piezoelectric elements, a central wiring portion connected to the first and second connection members and provided in a region including a center of an axial direction, and an extended wiring portion connected to the central wiring portion. The central wiring portion is fixed to the first main surface of the vibrator and the extended wiring portion is lifted from the first main surface of the vibrator.

A high-torque and high-precision ultrasonic motor with a self-protection function and an implementation mode of the high-torque and high-precision ultrasonic motor are provided. In the device, a gasket encloses an output shaft of an ultrasonic motor body. A harmonic reducer encloses a shell of the ultrasonic motor body. A motor shaft penetrates through the ultrasonic motor body. The end, close to the motor shaft, of the ultrasonic motor body is defined as a top end, and the bottom end of the motor shaft is sequentially enclosed with an encoder support and a high-precision encoder assembly. The gasket, the harmonic reducer, the encoder support and the high-precision encoder assembly are sequentially arranged from the ultrasonic motor body to the bottom end of the motor shaft. After the ultrasonic motor body decelerates and increases torque, the motor shaft outputs rotating speed and torque.

A drive control device is provided that drives an ultrasonic motor element including a vibrating body and piezoelectric elements provided on the vibrating body. The drive control device includes a speed detector that detects a driving speed of the ultrasonic motor element, a controller that sets drive conditions of the ultrasonic motor element, and a drive circuit unit that applies a drive voltage to the piezoelectric elements based on the drive conditions set by the controller. Moreover, the controller sets the drive conditions of the ultrasonic motor element based on the accumulated operation time for each driving speed of the ultrasonic motor element.

A lens barrel includes an element displaced by application of voltage; an elastic body having a contact surface coming into contact with the element, a drive surface to produce a vibration wave by displacement of the element, and a plurality of grooves; a moving element come into contact with the drive surface and rotated by the vibration wave; an annular ring rotated by rotating of the moving element; and a lens moved in an optical axis direction by rotating of the annular ring; wherein the element mainly contains a material having potassium sodium niobate, potassium niobate, sodium niobate, or barium titanate, wherein a value of [(T/B)÷W] is in a range of 0.84 to 1.94, where T represents a depth of the groove, B represents a distance from a bottom part of the groove to the contact surface, and W represents a radial width of the elastic body.

A lens barrel includes an element displaced by application of voltage; an elastic body having a contact surface coming into contact with the element, a drive surface to produce a vibration wave by displacement of the element, and a plurality of grooves; a moving element come into contact with the drive surface and rotated by the vibration wave; an annular ring rotated by rotating of the moving element; and a lens moved in an optical axis direction by rotating of the annular ring; wherein the element mainly contains a material having potassium sodium niobate, potassium niobate, sodium niobate, or barium titanate, wherein a value of [(T/B)÷W] is in a range of 0.84 to 1.94, where T represents a depth of the groove, B represents a distance from a bottom part of the groove to the contact surface, and W represents a radial width of the elastic body.