Integrated diagnostic and preload control for ball screw drives by means of self-sensing actuators

Piezoelectric ceramics can be used as sensors, as well as actors. The concept of a self-sensing-actuator tries to use both modes of operation in one device, allowing the economic integration of mechatronic systems. Possible fields of application are ball screws of machine tools, where wear-induced degradation of the preload can be compensated. Furthermore, the signal processing part of such a system can be used to gather information related to the condition of the ball screw. Both excitation signal generation and filtering of the measured signal have to offer high flexibility and signal fidelity. In this article the concept of a power amplifier and its corresponding signal processing system are presented.