Integration of a piezoelectric transformer and an ultrasonic motor.

Ultrasonic motors are usually operated at an AC voltage higher than a regular battery. This implies the need of a voltage step-up transformer. In this paper, we report the integration of a piezoelectric transformer (PT) with an ultrasonic motor and a simple drive circuit. The stator of the ultrasonic motor and the PT were operated in the same radial vibration mode. Their dimensions were very close to each other yielding nearly matching resonance frequencies. Consequently, they could be combined together without inductor. The drive circuit was designed by using a 555 timer as an astable multivibrator, and high-speed dual MOSFET drivers as a class D half-bridge switching amplifier. This integrated PT-ultrasonic motor performed reasonably without the use of electromagnetic transformer or inductor.