Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Sony Corporation

Hitachi, Ltd.

Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Aichi Machine Industry Co., Ltd.

Nissan Motor Company Limited

Hitachi Cable, Inc.

Takao Mori

Jiro Yamada

Takashi Hirano

Kei Suefuji

Mitsuru Asano

Atsushi Kimura

Shinji Tsuji

Michiharu Nakamura

Masaru Yamaguchi

Atsutoshi Doi

Shinji Yamamoto

Satoshi Yoshida

Takayuki Suzuki

Satoshi Tsuchiya

Takanori Shibasaki

Motohisa Hirao

Isao Kamiyama

Akira Shimada

Hiroyuki Seki

Yutaka Mabuchi

Hiroyuki Wada

Takayuki Tsukimoto

Tadahiko Nishimukai

Masatoshi Hada

Kosuke Fujimoto

Shuichi Terada

Akira Yokota

Mitsunobu Sekiya

Kazunobu Chiba

Shigeru Takeshita

Mitsuo Nishimura

Yoshiharu Irei

Takahiro Oya

Kenji Yamaguchi

Yutaka Takeda

Takemichi Yamashita

Yu Takahashi

Takeshi Kariya

Tadashi Goto

Hitoshi Oya

Masaaki Udagawa

Masashi Enda

Hiroyasu Nagami

Syuichiro Ogasawara

Kentarou Nakamura

Hiroyuki Momota

A vibration actuator suppressed in generating abnormal noise while realizing size reduction. The vibration actuator includes a vibration element having a piezoelectric element and an elastic member, and a contact body in contact with the vibration element. The contact body has a direction in which the vibration element and the contact body move relative to each other as a longitudinal direction and a square bar shape substantially uniform in width and thickness in the longitudinal direction, and includes a first section and a second section which are formed with respective R surfaces different in curvature radius on an edge extending in the longitudinal direction, in an area where the contact body performs frictional sliding on the vibration element.

Vibration actuator reduced in size and suppressed in generating abnormal noise and optical device

The driving apparatus comprises a vibrating body which includes an electro-mechanical energy conversion device, and drives a vibration-wave motor which moves the vibrating body and a driven body relatively to each other. The electro-mechanical energy conversion device has sensor electrodes that output detecting signals corresponding to vibrations of the vibrating body. Based on the detecting signals, the driving apparatus determines a direction in which the vibrating body and the driven body are to be moved relatively to each other.

Driving apparatus that drives pan head apparatus, control method therefor, vibration-wave motor apparatus, and image pickup apparatus

A vibrator of a vibration-type driving device according to an aspect of the present invention includes a first vibrating member that includes first protrusions protruding in a first direction, a second vibrating member that includes second protrusions protruding in a direction that is opposite to the first direction, and an electric-mechanical energy conversion element that is fixed to the first vibrating member. The first protrusions and the second protrusions each have a hollow structure, and the first vibrating member and the second vibrating member are disposed in such a manner that a surface of the first vibrating member on which the first protrusions are not formed and a surface of the second vibrating member on which the second protrusions are not formed face each other.

Vibrator, vibration-type driving device, image forming apparatus, robot, and pan head

A gear pair includes a first gear and a second gear that are engaged and paired with each other, wherein the arithmetic average roughness Ra of the tooth surface of the first gear is less than 0.10, and the arithmetic average roughness Ra of the tooth surface of the second gear is equal to or greater than 0.15. An improvement of the transmission efficiency is achieved due to the improved composite roughness of the gear pair. Accordingly, both of the improvement of the transmission efficiency of the gears and an improvement of the pitting fatigue life are achieved at low cost.

Gear pair

A vibration actuator includes a vibration element including a piezoelectric element as an electromechanical energy conversion element and an elastic body which is joined to the piezoelectric element, and a driven element which is brought into pressure contact with the elastic body. Driving vibration is excited in the vibration element by applying a drive signal to the piezoelectric element, whereby the vibration element and the driven element are moved relative to each other. The driving vibration is a vibration in which at least n-th-order vibration and 2n-th-order vibration are combined, n being a natural number.

Method of driving vibration actuator with enhanced sliding efficiency, vibration drive device, and mechanical apparatus

A vibration-type actuator that is capable of reducing an unnecessary vibration during driving includes a vibration body configured by connecting an electro-mechanical energy conversion element and an elastic body. A driven body is in pressure contact with the vibration body. A controller moves the vibration body and the driven body relatively by a vibration that is excited in the vibration body by applying driving voltage to the electro-mechanical energy conversion element so that a difference between a resonance frequency in a natural vibration mode of the vibration body that is higher than an upper limit frequency of a predetermined driving frequency range and that is nearest to the upper limit frequency and a frequency of the driving voltage is greater than a difference between a resonance frequency in a natural vibration mode used for moving the vibration body and the driven body relatively and the frequency of the driving voltage.

Vibration-type actuator, driving method for vibration-type actuator, and electronic apparatus equipped with vibration-type actuator

A vibration type actuator including a vibrator having an electro-mechanical energy conversion element and an elastic member fixed to the electro-mechanical energy conversion element; a base unit configured to fix the vibrator; a moving body configured to come into press contact with the vibrator and capable of being moved by the vibration; a press member configured to bring the vibrator and the moving body into press contact with each other and transmit a drive force of the moving body to an output unit; and a bearing unit configured to rotatably support the output unit with respect to the base unit, wherein the bearing unit is arranged on an outer peripheral side of the vibrator and the moving body in a direction orthogonal to a direction of rotation axis of the output unit.

Vibration type actuator

The present invention relates to a vibration-type driving apparatus including a vibrator including an electro-mechanical transducer; a driven body disposed in pressure-contact with the vibrator; a supporting portion extending from the vibrator; a base to which the vibrator is fixed with the supporting portion interposed therebetween; a vibration absorber disposed between the supporting portion and the base; and a compressive-force adjusting device capable of adjusting a compressive force to be applied to the vibration absorber between the supporting portion and the base.

Vibration-type driving apparatus, robot, and image forming apparatus

A rotary type vibration wave driving apparatus which is capable of reducing local wear of a contacting member and of reducing performance deterioration due to long term operation is provided. The apparatus includes a electro-mechanical energy conversion element, an vibration member fixed to the electro-mechanical energy conversion element and vibrated by a voltage being supplied to the electro-mechanical energy conversion element, and a moving member being brought into contact with the vibration member and frictionally driven by the vibration, and is configured such that the moving member includes a supporting portion extended from the main body portion of the moving member, and a contacting portion extended from the supporting portion and being brought into contact with the vibration member, and such that each of the supporting portion and the contacting portion is configured to be elastically deformable in the rotation axis direction of the moving member.

Rotary type vibration wave driving apparatus

A transmission shift fork engages with a coupling sleeve of a synchronizer and shifting the coupling sleeve. The transmission shift fork includes a first part, second part, and at least one fin. The first part is arranged to movably mount the transmission shift fork in a shift fork movement direction. The second part includes a coupling sleeve facing surface, an outwardly facing surface, and a pair of shift-direction facing surfaces. The coupling sleeve facing surface includes at least one coupling sleeve engagement part arranged to engage with an engaging groove formed on an external circumferential surface of the coupling sleeve. The outwardly facing surface includes an oil catch disposed in a position with respect to the coupling sleeve engagement part such that the oil catch captures lubricating oil and supplies to the coupling sleeve engagement part. The fin projects from inside an oil receiving recess defined by the oil catch.

Transmission shift fork

A vibration wave driven apparatus includes a vibrator configured to generate vibration, a rotor configured to be in frictional contact with the vibrator and to rotate about an axis of rotation, and a transmitting member configured to rotate about the axis and to transmit rotation of the rotor to an external component. A part of the transmitting member forms a worm portion of a worm gear.

Vibration wave driven apparatus and image pickup apparatus including vibration wave driven apparatus

An apparatus for manufacturing an organic electroluminescence display having an alignment chamber for aligning a mask having openings corresponding to a predetermined pattern with a substrate on which a first electrode layer is formed and detachably attaching the mask and the substrate. The apparatus further including a number of vacuum processing chambers for sequentially forming a number of organic material layers on the substrate attached with the mask. The apparatus also including a transfer robot for transferring the attached mask and substrate to one of the number of vacuum processing chambers and sequentially transferring it between the number of the vacuum processing chambers.

Apparatus and method for manufacturing an organic electroluminescence display

A vibration-type actuator having a vibrating body adapted to be deformed for driving and mounted with a contact member having a spring function. The contact member is comprised of a protruding portion adapted to be in contact with a driven body and fixing portions fixed to the vibrating body, and is provided with converting portion disposed between the projecting portion and the fixing portions. The converting portions each have an inclined surface obliquely extending relative to a contact surface provided in the protruding portion for contact with the driven body and extending to a side opposite from the contact surface. The converting portions convert a change in relative distance between the fixing portions caused by deformation of the vibrating body into a displacement of the contact surface.

Vibration-type actuator

An active matrix display comprises a circuitry layer and a device layer having a planarizing layer therebetween on the glass substrate. The circuitry layer has pixel circuits defining pixel units and the device layer has organic EL devices defining the pixel units. The organic EL devices are electrically connected with respective pixel circuits by contacts. The contacts are each positioned at the exterior of the emitting area, or the luminescent layer including an organic layer, of each pixel unit in the device layer.

Active matrix display

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Takao Mori