Design and Experimental Testing of an Improved Large-Range Decoupled XY Compliant Parallel Micromanipulator1

Abstract

There is an increasing need for XY compliant parallel micromanipulators (CPMs) providing good performance characteristics such as large motion range, well-constrained cross-axis coupling, and parasitic rotation. Decoupled topology design of the CPMs can easily realize these merits without increasing the difficulty of controlling. This paper proposes an improved 4-PP model on the basis of a classical 4-PP model and both of them are selected for manufacturing and testing to verify the effectiveness of the improvement. It has shown from experimental results that there is a large improvement on the performances of improved 4-PP compliant parallel manipulator (CPM): large range of motion up to 5 mm × 5 mm in the unidirection in the dimension of 311 mm × 311 mm × 24 mm, smaller compliance fluctuation (only 36.63% of that of the initial 4-PP model), smaller cross-axis coupling (only 28.10% of that of the initial 4-PP model generated by a single-axis 5 mm actuation), smaller in-plane parasitic yaw (only 57.14% of that of the initial 4-PP model generated by double-axis 5 mm actuation).

Short communication: Automated testing of accelerometer transverse sensitivity with a flexure-based XY compliant stage

“…In our earlier paper (Du et al, 2016), the design and optimization have been discussed. Compared with the design presented in Sun et al (2013), Hao and Yu (2016), Yu et al (2015), and Hao and Kong (2012), the prismatic joints are designed according to the divided parts n of the flexure hinge thickness. In addition, the distance between two neighboring hinges of the prismatic joints is considered in the dimensional optimization.…”

Design and development of a novel monolithic compliant XY stage with centimeter travel range and high payload capacity

“…It is challenging to design an XY stage with a large workspace and a compact physical dimension, simultaneously. Using the modified area ratio (Xu, 2012) whose denominators the actuators' dimensions should be added into, the area ratios of the stages proposed in Awtar (2004), Xu (2012) and Yu et al (2015) are only about 0.067, 0.069 and 0.026 % respectively; (b) the out-of-plane payload capacity is weak. When applied large out-of-plane payload, the load-stiffening phenomenon (Awtar et al, 2007) emerges in PPXYSs, which would induce nonlinearity and cause the loss of travel range.…”

“…A large number of millimeter-scale PPXYSs were proposed by researchers. Awtar (2004), Trease et al (2004), Tang et al (2006), Xu (2012) and Yu et al (2015) have designed and developed millimeter even centimeter scale PPXYSs. However, there are two main defects of these PPXYSs: (a) the structures of the stages are relatively loose.…”

Design, Fabrication and Testing of a Dual-Range XY Micro-Motion Stage Driven by Voice Coil Actuators

“…However, they also have several disadvantages such as non-linear behaviour and limited working area. A multitude of compliant XY motion stages have been reported in the literature [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10], with a range of motion from 105 × 105µm 2 to 25 × 25mm 2 and a positioning accuracy from 10μm down to a few nanometres. Combining high accuracy and large workspace implies expensive metrology such as ultra-high resolution/large range sensors and actuators.…”