Abstract A new type of piezoelectric spherical motor by means of traveling wave is developed. The spherical motor comprises of the stator and rotor. Curved piezoelectric actuator is designed in order to attach to the spherical surface. A series of the curved piezoelectric actuators are laid in a line around a spherical surface. Applying appropriate voltage signal with phase difference on the neighboring actuators, traveling wave is thus generated on the hemispherical shell. Design and analysis and experiment for one and two DOF operation are presented in this article. An FEM software (ANSYS) is used to analysis the hemi-spherical stator. For performance improvement, groove on hemi-spherical shell along the ceramics actuators is designed to avoid from the disturbance wave so that can guide the rotation direction as well as preload mechanism is designed to increase the rotation efficiency. A test bed is designed on which experiment is carried to measure the rotation speed and torque of the spherical motor and verify its system performance.