Self-Sensing Method Considering the Dynamic Impedance of Piezoelectric Based Actuators for Ultralow Frequency

This letter presents a displacement self-sensing method for piezoelectric actuators that takes into account the effect of the deformation of these latter on their electrical impedance. A self-updating digital electrical impedance equivalent to that of the piezoelement is suggested in order to overcome the mismatch problem met when considering a static analog electrical impedance as classically used. Then, the design of an observer that performs a thorough separation of the electric current due to the direct piezoelectric effect from the measured electric current is proposed in order to estimate the piezoelectric actuator displacement. The experimental results validate the proposed approach and demonstrate the efficiency of the developed self-sensing circuit and its observer to estimate the displacement of the piezoceramics actuator for long duration measurement of constant step signal.