NEW APPROACH TO A SWITCHING AMPLIFIER FOR PIEZOELECTRIC ACTUATORS

This paper describes a new approach to a switching amplifier for reactive loads (piezoelectric actuators). The amplifier transfers in every switching cycle exactly that portion of energy which is necessary to achieve the desired output value at the load. This approach allows unnecessary switching cycles — which merely heat the transducer and semiconductor components — to be avoided, thus permitting higher system dynamics than those of converters using traditional (PWM or current-mode) controllers. These features can be achieved by explicit evaluation of the differential equation of the converter system in every switching configuration.