Development of Rotary Actuator Including Function of Axial Bearing

축방향 베어링 통합 회전 구동기의 개발

Recently, the study on bearingless motors which integrate both motor and magnetic bearing function in one stator is very active, as many machines have high rotational speed, high precision, smaller size and lighter weight. In this paper, we propose a novel rotary actuator including function of axial bearing using Lorentz force as a preceding research for development of a bearingless motor. As using Lorentz force, this type has some merits such as the linearity of control force, freedom from flux saturation and high efficiency unlike conventional rotary actuators using a reluctance force. This type is cotrolled independently in levitation and rotational directions respectively. It shows by mathematical expression of levitation force and torque in the proposed rotary actuator. And also, the levitation force is generated by magnetic interaction between the magnetic materials and the rotational torque is generated by Lorentz force. Finally. for verification of this proposed system, a prototype is made and some experiments will be performed in the near future.