This article presents the design and implementation of a micropositioning system actuated by three piezoelectric stacks to control its displacements on XYZ axes. The use of conventional piezoelectric buzzers allows us to reduce fabrication costs. The working or mobile platform is the base for objects that will be manipulated, for example, in automated assembling. The micropositioner can be integrated into a microgripper to generate a complete manipulation system. For micropositioner fabrication, at first, Polylactic Acid (PLA) was chosen as the structural material, but after simulation and some experimental tests performed with a micropositioner made of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), it showed larger displacement (approx. 20%) due to its lower stiffness. A third test was performed with a positioner made with Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol (PETG), obtaining an intermediate performance. The originality of this work resides in the geometrical arrangement based on thermoplastic polymer compliance mechanisms, as well as in the use of additive manufacturing to fabricate it. An experimental setup was developed to carry out experimental tests. ANSYS™ was used for simulation.
The micro-accelerometers are devices used to measure acceleration. They are implemented in applications such as tilt-control in spacecraft, inertial navigation, oil exploration, etc. These applications require high operating frequency and displacement sensitivity. But getting both high parameter values at the same time is difficult, because there are physical relationships, for each one, where the mass is involved. When the mass is reduced, the operating frequency is high, but the displacement sensitivity decreases and vice versa. The implementation of Displacement-amplifying Compliant Mechanism (DaCM) supports to this dependence decreases. In this paper the displacement sensitivity and operation frequency of a Conventional Capacitive Accelerometer are shown (CCA). A Capacitive Accelerometer with Extended Beams (CAEB) is also presented, which improves displacement sensitivity compared with CCA, and finally the implementation of DACM´s in the aforementioned devices was also carried out. All analyzed cases were developed considering the in-plane mode. The Matlab code used to calculate displacement sensitivity and operating frequency relationship is given in Appendix A.
Keyword:Accelerometer Displacement Frequency MEMS Sensitivity
Using Poly-Silicon, the implementation of novel Displacement-amplifying Compliant Mechanisms (DaCM), in two geometries of accelerometers, allows for remarkable improvements in their operation frequency and displacement sensitivity, with different proportions. Similar DaCM´s geometries were previously implemented by us with Silicon. In all mentioned cases, the geometries of DaCM´s are adjusted in order to use them with Conventional Capacitive Accelerometer (CCA) and Capacitive Accelerometer with Extended Beams (CAEB), which operate in-plane mode, (y-axis). It should be noted that CAEB shows improvements (95.33%) in displacement sensitivity compared to ACC. Simulations results, carried out using Ansys Workbench software, validate the system’s performance designed with Poly-Silicon. Finally, a comparison with the similar systems, previously designed with Silicon, is also carried out.
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