Research and Development

As an actuator used in an active optical system, such as a camera, a DC motor and a step motor have generally been used, and a voice motor (moving coil motor) and a circular supersonic motor have been used for special applications. However, any of them failed to be made small while keeping a necessary thrust. Piezoelectric supersonic linear actuator (SIDM: Smooth Impact Drive Mechanism) developed solely by Konica Minolta is a device using quick response of a piezoelectric element and friction. It has advantages that a degree of freedom for the placement is high because it is small in size, very precise, responsive and its resolving power is high. Thus, locking mechanism is not needed because its self-holding capacity is excellent, and it is quiet because of its supersonic drive.

The SIDM is used for the camera-shake correction mechanism that is built in a digital camera body. We have realized the highly accurate and highly responsive camera-shake correction, by detecting the amount, speed and direction of the camera-shake via an angular velocity sensor, and by driving the CCD base board in the directions (X axis and Y axis) perpendicular to the optical axis for photographing on a real time basis.

SIDM is applied also to the control of zooming, auto-focusing and of aperture for the microcamera that is required to be downsized.