Multilevel switching-linear hybrid piezoelectric ceramic actuator driving method based on flying capacitor converters

Main principle of piezoelectric ceramic actuator is inverse piezoelectric effect. Piezoelectric ceramic actuator has a wide range of applications in precision engineering fields such as the ultra-precision positioning systems, microelectronics technology and space technology. So Piezoelectric ceramic driving circuit has high requirements on efficiency, power, output voltage rating and linearity. But the current driving circuits have significant deficiencies in these aspects. In this paper, a multilevel switching-linear hybrid driving method based on flying capacitor converters for the piezoelectric ceramic actuator is proposed to achieve high voltage, high power, high efficiency and high precision. Among the various multi-level topologies, flying capacitor converters are promising multi-level converters with high power density because the size of the capacitors is expected to be minimized in small converters with higher switching frequency. A flying-capacitor multilevel converter as the first stage circuit is used to output a basic voltage with ripples and a push-pull circuit as the second stage circuit is used to restrict the voltage ripples like a low pass power flier. As a result, the linear push-pull amplifier circuit outputs high voltage of high efficiency, high power, and high precision.