Design and fabrication of a new piezoelectric paper feeder actuator without mechanical parts

A piezoelectric paper feeder actuator using Micro Virtual Roller (MVR) is proposed, designed, fabricated and tested. This actuator can drive a sheet of paper forward or backward without any mechanical parts, such as the costly and heavy rollers used in traditional paper feeders. In this paper feeder actuator, two vibrating stators which produce traveling waves are used to drive the paper. The vibrations of the stators are similar to those of piezoelectric motors and follow a similar procedure to move the paper. A feasibility study simulated the actuator in COMSOL Multiphysics Software. Traveling wave and elliptical trajectories were obtained and the dimensions of the stator were optimized using FEM so that the paper could move at top speed. Next, the eigenfrequencies of the actuator was determined. Experimental testing was done in order to validate the FEM results that revealed the relationships between speed and parameters such as frequency and voltage. Advantages of this new mechanism are the sharp decrease in power consumption and low maintenance.