Basic study of power reduction for shape memory alloy actuator drive

Use of shape memory alloy (SMA) for a moving body has some merits against use of the other conventional actuators in view of high specific power, downsizing and simplification of actuators. On the other hand, large power consumption of SMA prevents to put to practical use. This paper shows optimization of input voltage into SMA actuators. First of all, a numerical actuator model is identified from measured data. After that, input voltage waves are optimized under three evaluation functions by using multi-objective optimization; maximum input voltage, time averaged input power and time averaged bending moment as output from SMA actuator. Obtained numerical results showed that high input maximum voltage reduced power consumption.