Dynamic analysis of an ultrasonic motor using point contact model

•We propose the dynamic modeling of an ultrasonic motor using point contact.•This model can simply and accurately estimate the motor response.•The model is verified by actual elliptical motion amplitude measured by high‐speed microscope.•The robustness of the model is examined by several experiments. We propose the dynamic modeling of a traveling wave ultrasonic motor using a point contact model between the stator and rotor. This model can simply and accurately estimate the transient response of the rotor motion. In this paper, we model the dynamic behavior of the motor torque and angular velocity based on the vibration amplitude of the elliptical motion generated in the ultrasonic motor. The use of a recent high-speed camera with a high-power lens (high-speed microscope) enables the observation of elliptical motion and the measurement of vibration amplitudes. We build a synchronous motor drive system including the high-speed microscope and verify the model experimentally. The proposed model has been in good agreement with the experimental results.