Robust Design and Performance Verification of an In-Plane XYθ Micropositioning Stage

This paper describes the robust design, fabrication, and performances verification of a novel ultraprecision XYθ micropositioning stage with piezoelectric actuator and flexure mechanism. The main goal of the proposed novel design is to combine a translational motion part and rotational motion part as a decoupled serial kinematics on a same plane. Proposed compound cymbal mechanisms of the translational motion part have functions of motion amplifier as well as motion guide. And Scott-Russell linkage mechanism is applied to the rotational motion part. In this research, Taguchi Design of Experiments is used for robust design with flexure notch hinge fabrication errors as noise factors. Target specifications of the design are sufficient range and bandwidth of motion. The proposed XYθ stage has a translational motion range of 58.0 μm and rotational motion range of 1.05 mrad, and a closed-loop resolution of ±2.5 nm, ±2.5 nm, and ±0.25 μrad in X-, Y-, and θ-directional motion, respectively. The proposed XYθ micropositioning stage has a novelty with in-plane and decoupled kinematic design, compared with many previously developed stages based on planar parallel kinematics.