An ultra-high-stability four-axis ultra-high-vacuum sample manipulator

Abstract

A report on a four-axis ultra-high-stability manipulator developed for use at the Veritas and Species RIXS beamlines at MAX IV Laboratory, Lund, Sweden, is presented. The manipulator consists of a compact, light-weight X–Y table with a stiffened Z tower carrying a platform with a rotary seal to which a manipulator rod holding the sample can be attached. Its design parameters have been optimized to achieve high eigen-frequencies via a light-weight yet stiff construction, to absorb forces without deformations, provide a low center of gravity, and have a compact footprint without compromising access to the manipulator rod. The manipulator system can house a multitude of different, easily exchangeable, manipulator rods that can be tailor-made for specific experimental requirements without having to rebuild the entire sample positioning system. It is shown that the manipulator has its lowest eigen-frequency at 48.5 Hz and that long-term stability is in the few tens of nanometres. Position accuracy is shown to be better than 100 nm. Angular accuracy is in the 500 nrad range with a long-term stability of a few hundred nanoradians.

Design and simulation of a 4-DOF robot arm transportation system

“…The robot arm structure has various forms, and the most commonly used forms are rotating joints and moving joints. Each rotating joint and moving joint have one degree of freedom, and the number of joints of a robot arm is the number of degrees of freedom [8].…”