Canon Patent Application: Linear Motor Drive

In this patent application, Canon uses ultrasonic motors to drive a linear drive for focusing lenses.  This is slightly different than Nano USM, and perhaps could be made for smaller lenses. Certainly, the description is to provide a USM motor drive for smaller lenses;

In the conventional ultrasonic motor, the fixed The volume of the screw itself for fixing the part and the volume of the female screw part to the screw are needed, and the dimension in the driving direction has been increased. In addition, in the lens drive of the interchangeable lens of the single-lens reflex camera described above, the lens drive device has been enlarged in the optical axis direction because the ultrasonic motor is long in the drive direction. Therefore, in the present invention has an object to provide a vibration type motor which is miniaturized driving dimension. 

As with all patents, we don't know if they will come out into actual products, however, showing these patents gives us a glimpse into what Canon has been researching.

Japan Patent Application 2019-126160