Fabrication and control of a 6-DOF magnetic levitation stage with nanopositioning capability

This work presents a compact 6-DOF (degree of freedom) maglev stage that levitates a platen of 0.212 kg and has nanopositioning capability over the linear travel range of 300 /spl mu/m. A controller was designed and implemented to stabilize the platen. The decoupling between the vertical and horizontal actuation forces was considered and taken care into controller. Various kinds of experiments were carried out to test the capabilities of the system. The experimental results show that the maglev device has a position resolution of better than 2 nm with a maximum velocity of 1 m/s and an acceleration of 30 m/s/sup 2/. This positioner can carry an additional payload of 400 g to orient and position the object under nanopositioning precisely. The nominal power consumption is only 15 mW by each horizontal actuator, and 320 mW by each vertical actuator. The potential applications of this maglev device include fabrication of nanoparts and their assembly, vibration isolation for delicate instrumentation, and microscale stereolithography.