This paper presents the design, modeling and position/force control of a new piezo-driven microgripper with integrated position and force sensors. The structural design of the microgripper is based on double amplification mechanisms employing the bridge-type mechanism and the parallelogram mechanism. The microgripper can generate a large gripping range and pure translation of the gripping arm. Through the pseudorigid-body-model method, theoretical models are derived. By means of several finite-element analysis simulations, the optimal structural parameters for the microgripper are acquired and the theoretical models are analyzed and validated. Furthermore, to improve the performance of the microgripper, a new hybrid position/force control scheme employing a nonlinear fuzzy logic controller combined with an incremental proportional-integral controller is presented. The control scheme is capable of regulating the position and the gripping force of the microgripper simultaneously. Experimental investigation and validation were performed and the experimental results verify the effectiveness of the developed structural design and the proposed hybrid control scheme.

Rolling bearing is an important part guaranteeing the normal operation of rotating machinery, which is also prone to various damages due to severe running conditions. However, it is usually difficult to extract the weak fault characteristic information from rolling bearing vibration signals and to realize a rolling bearing fault diagnosis. Hence, this paper offers a rolling bearing fault diagnosis method based on successive variational mode decomposition (SVMD) and the energy concentration and position accuracy (EP) index. Since SVMD decomposes a vibration signal of a rolling bearing into a number of modes, it is difficult to select the target mode with the ideal fault characteristic information. Comprehensively considering the energy concentration degree and frequency position accuracy of the fault characteristic component, the EP index is proposed to indicate the target mode. As the balancing parameter is crucial to the performance of SVMD and must be set properly, the line search method guided by the EP index is introduced to determine an optimal value for the balancing parameter of SVMD. The simulation and experiment results demonstrate that the proposed SVMD method is effective for rolling bearing fault diagnosis and superior to the variational mode decomposition (VMD) method.

This article proposes a two-degree-of-freedom actuator based on the stick-slip motion principle to meet performance requirements of macrostroke, nanoaccuracy, and few coupling in the micro/nanooperation field. Unlike existing 2-DOF stick-slip actuators, it exhibits a compact decoupled parallel guiding structure in macrostroke. The actuator mainly consists of decoupling, driving, and preloading units. The decoupling unit uses parallel kinematic chains with guided rails and connectors to decouple macromovements, the driving unit utilizes bridge mechanisms to amplify single-step displacement, and the preloading unit adopts flexible hinges to adjust contact friction, thus performing well. Then, theoretical analysis and electromechanical simulation are performed. A prototype is finally fabricated, and motion performance tests are conducted. Experimental results show that the net single-step displacements in the x - and y -direction are 37.08 and 36.63 μ m, the coupling ratios in the two directions are 0.75% and 0.77%, and the displacement resolutions are 6.4 and 7.3 nm, respectively. Meanwhile, the motion stroke can be up to 13 mm × 13 mm. Also, the actuator has a maximum speed of 13.97 mm/s and a maximum vertical load capacity of 50 N at a drive voltage of 120 V. Experiments verify the superior performance of the 2-DOF decoupled stick-slip actuator.

Power quality disturbances (PQDs) have a large negative impact on electric power systems with the increasing use of sensitive electrical loads. This paper presents a novel hybrid algorithm for PQD detection and classification. The proposed method is constructed while using the following main steps: computer simulation of PQD signals, signal decomposition, feature extraction, heuristic selection of feature selection, and classification. First, different types of PQD signals are generated by computer simulation. Second, variational mode decomposition (VMD) is used to decompose the signals into several instinct mode functions (IMFs). Third, the statistical features are calculated in the time series for each IMF. Next, a two-stage feature selection method is imported to eliminate the redundant features by utilizing permutation entropy and the Fisher score algorithm. Finally, the selected feature vectors are fed into a multiclass support vector machine (SVM) model to classify the PQDs. Several experimental investigations are performed to verify the performance and effectiveness of the proposed method in a noisy environment. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the start and end points of the PQD can be efficiently detected.

Gearboxes are widely used in drive systems of rotating machinery. The health status of gearboxes considerably influences the normal and reliable operation of rotating machinery. When a gearbox experiences tooth failure, a vibration signal with impulse features is excited. However, these impulse features tend to be relatively weak and difficult to extract. To solve this problem, a novel approach for gearbox fault feature extraction and fault diagnosis based on improved variational mode extraction (VME) is proposed. Since the initial value of the desired mode center frequency and the value of the penalty parameter in VME must be assigned, a short-time Fourier transform (STFT) was performed, and a new index, the standard deviation of differential values of envelope maxima positions (SDE), is proposed. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach was verified by a simulation signal and two datasets associated with a gearbox test bench. The results demonstrate that the VME-based approach outperforms the variational mode decomposition (VMD) approach.

This article presents the design, modeling, and experimental testing of a novel piezo-driven XY stage with parallel, decoupled, and compact kinematic structure. The structural design of the stage is based on a hybrid compliant mechanism employing the right-circular double-rocker mechanism and the leaf-type parallelogram mechanism. The proposed XY stage is capable of producing a large workspace range, an excellent decoupled motion, and a suitable resonant frequency. By means of the pseudorigid-body-model method, the theoretical models of the XY stage are derived. Using the finite element analysis simulations, the optimal structural parameters are acquired, and the theoretical models are analyzed and validated. A prototype of the proposed stage was finally manufactured, and several experimental investigations were performed to validate its performances. The experimental results show that the XY stage has a large amplification ratio of 7.48 and a large workspace range of 150.3 µm × 147.9 µm. In addition, the parasitic motion along the y-axis (x-axis) accounts for 0.94% (0.74%) of the x-axis (y-axis) motion, which indicates that the stage possesses excellent decoupling characteristics.