Linear Shaft Motors

You’re looking at a Xeryon mini linear actuator driven by our Crossfixx™ ultrasonic motor. These actuators have a very small form factor and offer the benefits of both piezo actuators and direct-drive linear motors without their drawbacks.

The Xeryon XLA is therefore commonly used as an alternative for linear (shaft) motors (e.g. Faulhaber LM-series) , voice coil actuators, traditional piezo motors and screw-driven actuators.

Our Crossfixx™ ultrasonic motor uses vibration to move a ceramic tip in an elliptical pattern at a very high frequency (80 kHz - 180 kHz). Spring-loaded against a ceramic strip on the actuator rod, it generates very small but rapid movements, resulting in high-speed motion and silent operation with a long lifetime.

This gives you the best of both worlds:

1) The lifetime and speed of a linear (shaft) motor.
2) The precision and compactness of a piezo motor.

Xeryon’s micro linear actuators offer a unique combination of high speed, precision, long stroke, and durability in an ultra-compact design, overcoming the limitations of traditional linear actuators where trade-offs have to be made (e.g. stroke length in voice coils, speed and precision in screw-driven actuators, and size and holding force in linear (shaft) motors).

Xeryon’s actuators are gearless, self-locking, energy-efficient and operate at low voltages. They don’t produce a magnetic field, are back-drivable, and free from drift or play.

For a complete overview of different micro linear actuators, take a look this comparison page.

Xeryon’s ultrasonic piezo actuators are much faster, have a much larger stroke, a much (much!) longer lifetime, operate noiselessly, consume less power, and operate at a much lower voltage at the piezo element.

In other words, they offer the precision and compact size of traditional piezo actuators, without their typical drawbacks.

Traditional stick-slip piezo actuators operate at much lower frequencies, typically within the frequency range of small mechanical components. Apart from being in the human audible spectrum, this introduces the risk of the piezo motor making the entire system vibrate, rather than only the motor itself.

Xeryon's ultrasonic piezo actuators operate at much higher frequencies (80 - 180 kHz), ensuring silent operation and no unwanted vibrations.

For a complete overview of different linear motion systems for space-constrained applications, take a look this comparison page.