Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Masaru Higashionji

Hideaki Mukae

Yusuke Adachi

Eiichi Nagaoka

Takaaki Maegawa

Masafumi Shimotashiro

Akio Murata

Masaru Odagiri

Kenji Hasegawa

Akio Kuroe

Toshiharu Okada

Kenji Kondo

Hiroshi Sakakima

Kenichi Honjo

Mitsuo Satomi

Masayuki Ono

Toshiyuki Aoyama

Hiroshi Yohda

Hiroshi Seki

Eisuke Sawai

Kenya Hori

Tatsushi Bannai

Hiroshi Okamoto

Haruo Isaka

Takeshi Otsuka

Hideo Hatanaka

Hirofumi Uchida

Kazuo Nakamura

Keiichi Ishida

Tetsuya Mizushima

Souichiro Fujioka

Kouhei Baba

Takeshi Inoue

Kazunori Umee

Yoshihiko Morioka

A drive unit includes an ultrasonic actuator having an actuator body formed using a piezoelectric element, and a driving element provided on the actuator body and configured to output a driving force by moving according to the vibration of the actuator body, and a control section configured to induce the vibration in the actuator body by applying a first and a second AC voltages having a same frequency and different phases to the piezoelectric element. The control section adjusts the first AC voltage and the second AC voltage so that the first AC voltage and the second AC voltage have different voltage values from each other.

Drive unit

A supporting structure for an actuator body, which can prevent reduction of vibration of an actuator body and maintain a contact state of a driver element with an abutment body in a stable manner even when the driver element receives reactive force from the abutment body is realized. An ultrasonic actuator () includes an actuator body () for generating vibration, driver elements (), provided on a mounting surface () of the actuator body (), for outputting driving force, a pressing rubber () for pressing the actuator body () to a stage (), a case () to which the actuator body () is coupled, and a plate spring () for elastically supporting the actuator body () relative to the case (). The plate spring () supports the mounting surface () of the actuator body () on which the driver elementsare provided.

Vibratory actuator

A fuel cell body has an anode having an anode-side separator with projections and depressions formed on its surface, a cathode, and a membrane electrode assembly disposed between the anode and the cathode, and the fuel cell body is disposed in a container for storing liquid fuel so that at least the anode side is immersed therein. Fuel passageways through which the liquid fuel flows are formed by regions surrounded by the projections and depressions on the surface of the separator and the membrane electrode assembly. By this, the downsized, simplified and lower power consuming structure of auxiliary equipment such as a fuel feed system is achieved.

Fuel cell

A radio-type transmitting device capable of transmitting information other than information in an internal memory is provided. A RFID tag includes a encoding circuit for digitalizing receiving sensitivity of a radio wave sent from an external transmitting/receiving apparatus and then sending the digitalized receiving sensitivity to the external transmitting/receiving apparatus. Thus, the external transmitting/receiving apparatus can obtain a distance between the external transmitting/receiving apparatus and the RFID tag based on received sensitivity information.

Radio-type transmitting device, container, transmitting/receiving system and transmitting/receiving method

A vibratory actuator includes a piezoelectric element, a driver element provided on the piezoelectric element and a movable body supported by the driver element. A control unit supplies a first voltage and a second voltage at the same frequency to the piezoelectric element. By supplying the first voltage and the second voltage having a difference phase from a phase of the first voltage by 90&#xb0;, the piezoelectric element is lead to composite vibration of stretching and bending, thereby causing the driver to make an elliptical motion by the vibration and move the movable body. The control unit switches, during a fine mode, a phase difference between the first voltage and the second voltage between 90&#xb0; and 0&#xb0;.

A fuel tank for a fuel cell includes a fuel valve which allows a methanol water solution to pass to a fuel supply portion from a fuel injecting portion after joining a fuel cell main body and the fuel tank for the fuel cell, and shuts off the passage of the methanol water solution before the fuel supply portion and the fuel injecting portion are disconnected. Accordingly, the fuel valve is properly opened and closed, the liquid fuel does not leak out from the fuel tank for the fuel cell at a time of attaching and detaching, and it is possible to improve a safety in the fuel supply in comparison with the conventional structure.

Fuel tank for fuel cell and fuel cell system

A drive unit includes a vibration actuator for controlling the piezoelectric element. A control section controls the vibration actuator switchably between a normal operation mode in which the piezoelectric element vibrates at a predetermined frequency to let the vibration actuator output a driving force, and a heating mode in which the piezoelectric element vibrates in a direction perpendicular to a direction of the driving force at a frequency different from the frequency in the normal operation mode to heat the piezoelectric element.

An ultrasonic actuator includes: an actuator body using a piezoelectric element and generating a plurality of vibrations of different vibration directions; a driver element provided in the actuator body and operated in accordance with the vibration of the actuator body to output a driving force in a predetermined driving direction; a case containing the actuator body; at least one support rubber provided between the actuator body and the case to elastically support the actuator body along the driving direction with respect to the case; and at least one stopper provided between the actuator body and the case which comes into contact with at least one of the actuator body and the case when the actuator body is displaced in a direction opposite the driving direction such that the displacement of the actuator body in the direction opposite the driving direction is limited.

Vibration actuator

An ultrasonic actuator includes: an actuator body () including an actuator body (); a control circuit () for setting a driving frequency; power supply sources () for applying a driving voltage having the driving frequency to the actuator body; and a memory () for storing data related to a difference between antiresonance and resonance frequencies of the actuator body (). The control circuit () determines, based on a reference frequency where a current value of a current fed to the piezoelectric element () is local minimum and the data stored in the memory (), a lower limit of a control range of the driving frequency so that the lower limit is equal to or higher than a frequency where the current value of the current fed to the piezoelectric element () is local maximum and determines the driving frequency to be a frequency in the control range.

Ultrasonic actuator

A drive unit includes a control unit for controlling an ultrasonic actuator. The control unit performs switching between a normal operation mode in which the piezoelectric element unit vibrates at a frequency close to a resonance frequency of longitudinal vibration in the lengthwise direction of the piezoelectric element unit and a resonance frequency of bending vibration to let the ultrasonic actuator output a driving force and a heating mode in which the piezoelectric element unit vibrates at a frequency close to a resonance frequency of longitudinal vibration in the thickness direction of the piezoelectric element unit to heat the piezoelectric element.

A drive unit includes a guide, a stage which is movable relative to the guide, an ultrasonic actuator for moving the movable body and a control unit for controlling the ultrasonic actuator. The ultrasonic actuator includes a driver element in contact with the stage and is fixed to the guide. A surface of the stage in contact with the driver element is an undulating surface. The control unit detects the position of the stage based on a change in contact pressure on the driver element due to the undulating surface.

A piezoelectric element is formed by stacking piezoelectric layers and internal electrode layers. The internal electrode layers are positive and negative electrode layers. The positive electrode layers are first and second positive electrode layers. The negative electrode layers are first and second negative electrode layers. Each of the first positive and negative electrode layers includes four divided electrodes and a connecting electrode for connecting a pair of the four divided electrodes formed on diagonally opposite two areas along a first diagonal direction on a principle surface of the associated one of the piezoelectric layers. Each of the second positive and negative electrode layers includes four divided electrodes and a connecting electrode for connecting a pair of the four divided electrodes formed on diagonally opposite two areas along a second diagonal direction on a principle surface of the associated one of the piezoelectric layers.

Growing community of inventors

Osaka, Japan

Masaru Higashionji