Development of micro/nano displacement sensor for piezoelectric actuator

Micro displacement measurement of the PZT actuator is a micro sensor which could measure the minute displacement in micron or nanometer level. In general, the sensor is required to accommodate little space in order to save the room of measuring device. In this paper, a mechanical micro displacement sensor with smaller volume has been proposed. This paper focus on the whole process of this novel sensor from the working principle, parameter determine to the FEM simulation as well as the characteristic experiment and so on. This sensor can enlarge the displacement of the PZT by utilizing the lever principle and the strain gauges can perceive the variation without amplifying the noise. In this sensor, we use the flexure hinges as the rotation joints to obtain the expansion. Whatever the simulation results in FEM or the experiment data, both of which show that the sensor can perceive the displacement of the PZT actuator in micro/nano scale. Also, the characteristic experiment shows that the proposed sensor has a higher level linearity, resolution and lower error.