Samsung Patents Camera Shake Fix That Could End Blurry Smartphone Photos
Camera shake is the enemy of a good photo, and the tiny motors that fight it are one of the least-talked-about parts of your phone. Samsung is rethinking how those motors are built.
What Samsung's new camera stabilization motor actually does
Ever tried to snap a photo while walking, and it came out blurry no matter how steady you thought you were? That blur usually comes from tiny, unavoidable hand movements, and your phone uses a small internal motor to shift the camera lens or sensor in real time to cancel them out.
Samsung's new patent describes a different approach to building that motor. Instead of one vibrating element doing all the work, the design uses two piezoelectric vibrators (think: tiny crystals that move when electricity is applied) pressing against a moving body from two points at once. Each vibrator handles its own patch of a flexible strip, giving the system two separate push points to steer the lens or sensor sideways.
Why two instead of one? More contact points mean more precise control over where the lens ends up, with less chance of it drifting off target between corrections. The result, in theory, is a more accurate stabilization system packed into the same tight camera module your phone already fits.
… a first piezoelectric actuator configured to move the lens or the image sensor in a direction that is substantially orthogonal to the OA …
Translation: It uses microscopic vibrations to physically shift parts of the camera and counteract hand tremors.
How the two vibrators push the lens into position
The patent centers on a piezoelectric actuator, which is a motor that creates movement from electrical vibrations rather than spinning coils and magnets like a traditional motor. Piezoelectric motors are already used in some high-end camera modules because they're compact and precise.
What Samsung is patenting here is a specific arrangement:
- A first vibrator and a second vibrator, each generating its own mechanical vibration when energized.
- A first moving body that has two flexible zones, called elastically deformable regions, built into it.
- Two tips, one per vibrator, that press against each flexible zone and transfer the vibration into physical movement.
The moving body responds to those vibrations by sliding in a direction that is perpendicular to the camera's optical axis (the invisible straight line from the lens to the image sensor). Shifting in that perpendicular direction is exactly what optical image stabilization (OIS) requires: it nudges the lens or sensor to compensate for the angle your hand is tilting the phone.
Using two vibrators pressing at two separate deformable points, rather than a single contact, gives the system more distributed force and potentially finer positional accuracy. The patent also leaves room for a second piezoelectric actuator, suggesting the design could control movement along two axes at once.
… a first tip configured to press the first elastically deformable region and configured to transmit the vibration generated from the first vibrator to the first elastically deformable region …
Translation: Tiny components press against flexible parts inside the phone to transfer movement and stabilize the image.
What this means for shaky-hand photos on future Samsung phones
For you as a phone user, better optical stabilization shows up in two concrete situations: low-light photos where longer exposures amplify any shake, and video where even a slight wobble looks bad on a large screen. A more precise actuator can correct faster and more accurately, which translates to sharper stills and smoother handheld video without extra software processing.
Samsung's ongoing camera hardware filings suggest the company is investing at the component level, not just software post-processing. If this actuator design makes it into a production Galaxy camera module, the improvement would be most noticeable for people who shoot in dim rooms or who film while moving, and it would require no change in how they use the camera at all.
Samsung's 105th filing we've tracked in our camera sensor work since May builds on earlier applications like one cutting noise in photos and one adapting to light levels.
Stabilization in phone cameras is what separates a sharp photo from a blurry one when you're shooting in a dark restaurant or catching a kid mid-run. Samsung's patent targets exactly that moment, describing a motor design that uses two vibrating points instead of one to control where the lens or sensor sits.
More contact points on a flexible moving body means finer, more reliable positioning. That translates to the camera holding steady longer and recovering faster when your hand moves, without the assembly needing to grow any larger.
Whether this reaches a shipping phone is uncertain, but Samsung is working on the problem at the level where photo quality is actually decided, not in software after the light has already been captured.
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The drawings
39 drawing sheets from US 2026/0261764 A1 · click any drawing to enlarge
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