A three-DOF compliant micromotion stage with flexure hinges

Abstract

Micromanipulation has enabled numerous technological breakthroughs in recent years, from advances in biotechnology to microcomponent assembly. Micromotion devices commonly use piezoelectric actuators (PZT) together with compliant mechanisms to provide fine motions with position resolution in the nanometre or even sub-nanometre range. Many multiple degree of freedom (DOF) micromotion stages have parallel structures due to better stiffness and accuracy than serial structures. This paper presents the development of a three-DOF compliant micromotion stage with flexure hinges and parallel structure for applications requiring motions in micrometres. The derivation of a simple linear kinematic model of the compliant mechanism is presented and simulation results before and after calibration are compared with results from finite element (FE) modeling and experiments. The position control system, which uses an experimentally determined constant-Jacobian, and its performance are also presented and discussed.