Article in ECN magazine – Advances in piezo motor driver electronics reduce system power by approximately 40% while maintaining output power (motor speed) and optimal motor performance, and producing smoother, quieter motion.
Many optical applications require an off-axis sensor configuration to leave a clear aperture for light transmission through the center of a rotating optical element, which may be a polarizing optic, a micro filter wheel, a wedged prism or other component.
Hall effect position sensors with on-chip analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) lend themselves to very tiny systems. Using a novel implementation of these integrated linear position sensors, engineers at New Scale Technologies created a unique off-axis rotary position sensor that delivers absolute angular position information over a standard I2C serial digital interface. This sensor has a wide clear aperture, very small size and low power use. Coupled with New Scale’s tiny piezoelectric motors, it enables highly-miniaturized optical systems.
Piezoelectric micro motor is coupled with innovative micro-mechanical design to minimize lens tilt, enabling extremely high-precision imaging in micro-camera formats
With small size and high resolution, custom SQUIGGLE motors enable JPL to create a large, densely packed optical fiber positioning array in the spectrograph for the Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea
Miniaturized piezoelectric motion modules move hundreds of lenses with micrometer precision, contributing to unprecedented image detail in the wide-field-of-view camera developed at Duke University
Piezoelectric micro motor and miniaturized drive circuit enable tiny motion systems that operate directly from 3V battery power
Technical paper Presented at Actuator 2012 by David Henderson, New Scale Technologies – Micro-scale smart actuator modules have recently been commercialized for imaging systems. These smart actuators enable “plug and play” integration, rapid prototyping and faster times to market.
Article published in Electronic Products – Technology developed for today’s smart phone cameras is being extended for use in non-consumer applications. In this article we discuss how and why phone camera focus systems evolved from voice coil motors to piezo motion systems, and what that means for designers of embedded imaging systems for non-consumer applications.
