A vibration-type driving apparatus is capable of, in a case where a sintered body is impregnated with resin, preventing the resin that has hardened from interfering with other members. A movable body is brought into pressure contact with a vibrating body having an electro-mechanical energy conversion element and an elastic body. The vibrating body and the movable body are moved relatively to each other through vibrations excited in the vibrating body. The movable body has a frictional surface including the sintered body impregnated with the resin and comes into contact with the vibrating body. The movable body has a sloped surface adjacent to the frictional surface in a cross section perpendicular to a direction in which the vibrating body and the movable body move relatively to each other. An angle formed by the frictional surface and the sloped surface is greater than 90 degrees and less than 180 degrees.

A vibrating type actuator which hardly causes a failure and can suppress occurrence of abnormal noise while not preventing vibration from being excited in a vibrator. The vibrating type actuator comprises a vibrator in which vibration is excited, and a contact body which is in contact with the vibrator, wherein the vibrator and the contact body move relatively to each other. The vibrating type actuator comprises a holding member which holds the vibrator, a pressurizing member which pressurizes the vibrator against the contact body, a support member which movably supports the holding member in a pressurizing direction, in which the pressurizing member performs pressurization, and an vibration damping member which is in contact with the holding member at a plurality of portions while sandwiching the holding member in a direction orthogonal to the pressurizing direction.

A vibration type motor includes a vibrator that includes a piezo element, a contacting portion, and a holding portion, and generates a first vibration and a second vibration, a friction member that makes frictional contact with the contacting portion of the vibrator, a holding member that holds the holding portion of the vibrator, and a biasing member that biases the holding portion of the vibrator to the holding member, and a condition of A3/A1<A4/A2 is satisfied where A1 and A2 are respectively amplitudes of the contacting portion in the first vibration and the second vibration, and A3 and A4 are respectively amplitudes of the holding portion in the first vibration and the second vibration in a state where the vibrator is not held by the holding member.

A vibration motor includes a vibrator, a friction member, and a pressurizing unit. The vibrator includes projecting portions and is vibrated by application of a driving voltage. The projecting portions are arranged in vicinities of nodes of the vibration, respectively. The friction member has a sliding surface formed of a curved surface with which the projecting portions come into contact. The pressurizing unit pressurizes the vibrator against the friction member with a pressurizing force. When the vibrator is vibrated, a driving force is generated in a tangential direction of the sliding surface by the vibration to drive the friction member relative to the vibrator, and each of the projecting portions generates an elliptic motion by the vibration. The elliptic motion is generated with an inclination at a predetermined angle with respect to the curved surface of the sliding surface.

A vibration type actuator uses a friction material of which a depth of impregnation with a resin can be easily measured in a non-destructive manner. The vibration type actuator has a vibrating body including an electro-mechanical energy conversion element and an elastic body; and a contact body configured to come into contact with the vibrating body. The vibration type actuator has a structure in which at least one of a friction portion of the contact body coming into contact with the vibrating body and a friction portion of the vibrating body coming into contact with the contact body has a metallic portion including a pore that is impregnated with a resin containing a fluorescent material.

A semi-resonant actuator assembly includes a resonating body comprising a piezoelectric plate having a first length, a first width, and a first thickness, and an inactive plate having a second length substantially equal the first length, a second width substantially equal to the first width, and second thickness. A thickness of the resonating body is provided by a sum of the first thickness of the active piezoelectric plate and the second thickness of the inactive plate.

A first member, a second member, a bearing that rotatably supports the second member about a rotation axis relative to the first member, a driven member placed on the first member, and a plurality of piezoelectric actuators that transmit driving forces for rotating the second member about the rotation axis relative to the first member to the driven member are provided, and the piezoelectric actuators are supported by the second member while being pressed against the first member or the member fixed thereto, and, as seen from a direction along the rotation axis, a center of pressing forces from the plurality of piezoelectric actuators to the driven member is located inside of an outer circumferential part of the bearing.

A vibrator which is constructed by bonding a piezoelectric element and an elastic body together via a bonding layer. The piezoelectric element has a piezoelectric ceramic and electrodes. The bonding layer has an unbonded region that is located close to a nodal line of a vibration in a primary out-of-plane vibration mode when the vibration is excited in the vibrator, and in the unbonded region, the piezoelectric element and the elastic body are not bonded together.

A method of fabricating an apparatus for piercing an object, the apparatus comprises: a substrate; one or more needles; one or more anchors and one or more piezoelectric actuators. The method comprises the steps of deposit sacrificial layer over the substrate; deposit conducting layer over the sacrificial layer; deposit piezoelectric layer over the conducting layer; etch a geometry of the one or more piezoelectric actuators using a first mask created by lithography process; deposit the one or more needle and one or more anchors using a second mask created by lithography process and a lift-off process; etch the sacrificial layer under the needle and the one or more piezoelectric actuators, wherein the anchors are configured to connect the substrate to the piezoelectric actuators and the one or more piezoelectric actuators are configured to move the one or more needles.

A control device for a vibration actuator includes a detection signal acquisition section adapted to obtain an alternating-current detection signal corresponding to a vibration of the resonator body from the resonator bodies, a phase difference detection section adapted to detect a phase difference between the drive signal and the detection signal with respect to the resonator bodies, a resonator body selection section adapted to select one from the resonator bodies, and a drive signal control section adapted to adjust a frequency of the drive signal so that the phase difference in the resonator body selected comes closer to a target value.