A three degree-of-freedom (DOF) ultrasonic motor (USM) with a cylinder-shaped stator and a spherical rotor is introduced, which uses one first order longitudinal and two second order bending nature vibration modes of the cylinder. Control strategies for the two DOF trajectory following are studied and applied to the prototype USM. Vibration amplitude control is employed for speed regulation. The first trajectory following strategy is a step-by-step interpolation. The second strategy is vector decomposition control. Three pulse width modulation (PWM) methods for the exciting voltage regulation are investigated. These methods are compared and verified by several experiments. The key is to keep the phase differences of the three vibration constants and small exciting voltage distortion while the exciting voltages are changed for simplifing the control process and obtaining good control performance. The vector control method has advantages of small trajectory following error, smooth moving and low noise.
