A Planar Wobble Motor With a XY Compliant Mechanism Driven by Shape Memory Alloy

Abstract

This paper describes the design concept, operating principle, analytical design, fabrication of a functional prototype, and experimental performance verification of a novel wobble motor with a XY compliant mechanism driven by shape memory alloy (SMA) wires. With the aim of realizing an SMA based motor which could generate bidirectional high-torque motion, the proposed motor is devised with wobble motor driving principle widely utilized for speed reducers. As a key mechanism which functions to guide wobbling motion, a planar XY compliant mechanism is designed and applied to the motor. Since the mechanism has monolithic flat structure with the planar mirror symmetric configuration, cyclic expansion and contraction of the SMA wires could be reliably converted into high-torque rotary motion. For systematic design of the motor, a characterization of electro-thermomechanical behavior of the SMA wire is experimentally carried out, and the design parametric analysis is conducted to determine parametric values of the XY compliant mechanism. The designed motor is fabricated as a functional prototype to experimentally investigate its operational feasibility and working performances. The observed experimental results obviously demonstrate the unique driving characteristics and practical applicability of the proposed motor.