Bionic Stepping Motors Driven by Piezoelectric Materials

By imitating the behavioral characteristics of some typical animals, researchers develop bionic stepping motors to extend the working range of piezoelectric materials and utilize their high accuracy advantage as well. A comprehensive review of the bionic stepping motors driven by piezoelectric materials is presented in this work. The main parts of stepping piezoelectric motors, including the feeding module, clamping module, and other critical components, are introduced elaborately. We classify the bionic stepping piezoelectric motors into inchworm motors, seal motors, and inertia motors depending on their main structure modules, and present the mutual transformation relationships among the three types. In terms of the relative position relationships among the main structure modules, each of the inchworm motors, seal motors, and inertia motors can further be divided into walker type, pusher type, and hybrid type. The configurations and working principles of all bionic stepping piezoelectric motors are reported, followed by a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the performance for each type. This work provides theoretical support and thoughtful insights for the understanding, analysis, design, and application of the bionic stepping piezoelectric motors.