Drives that are based on piezomotors combine the high stiffness and dynamics of pure piezo actuators with unlimited travel ranges. They also operate with high resolution in the nanometer range. This means they can always replace conventional motor-spindle combinations when these are not small, precise, fast, powerful or reliable enough. In medical engineering, this is the case when pipetting or in robotics, for example. Different versions cover a wide variety of application requirements. All technologies have however some common qualities:

• Compact design
• Different forms of integration: from linear drive to integrated positioning systems with respective electronics
• Self-locking (stable position at rest with no energy consumption)
• Ultrasonic piezo linear drives: Small, fast, low cost, to around 10N
• Piezo stepping drives: Small, nanometer accuracy, high dynamics, 10N to approx. 500N

Find out more on www.pi-medical.ws.