A novel piezoelectric actuated 2-DOF joint for underwater manipulator: design, simulation, and experimental investigation

For some underwater applications that need lightweight manipulator and fine operation, a novel piezoelectric actuated underwater mechanical manipulator two-degrees-of-freedom (2-DoF) joint was proposed and investigated in this study. The joint is composed of two unit arm sections orthogonally connected by connecting components. The inverse piezoelectric effect of the piezoelectric actuator on the unit arm section generates friction as a driving...