Development of a large working range flexure-based 3-DOF micro-parallel manipulator driven by electromagnetic actuators

This paper presents the design and analysis of a novel compliant flexure-based micro-parallel positioning stage for micro active vibration isolation application. The stage is constructed with a symmetric structure by employing three parallel PUU legs, a moving platform and a fixed platform. It is driven by 6 electromagnetic actuators and with 3 translational DOFs. The mobility characters of the stage is analyzed and proved via FEA method. The compliance modeling of the stage is conducted by resorting to compliance matrix method, and analytical models for electromagnetic forces are also established, both mechanical structure and electromagnetic model are validated by finite element analysis (FEA) performed with ANSYS. The mechanical structure is analyzed in a multi-physics environmental simulation and electromagnetic actuators are applied in ANSYS too. Both FEA and the analytical models well demonstrate that the movement of the stage is purely translational. The prototype of the designed system is fabricated, preliminary test shows the design is successful. With the parameters designed in the paper, the stage can have large working space, very high resolution and heavy work-load ability as well.