A precision piezodriven micropositioner mechanism with large travel range

A micropositioning stage with large travel range has been designed and built. The stage combines a piezoelectric driving element, flexure pivoted multiple Scott-Russell linkage, and a parallel guiding spring. Quality engineering techniques are used to optimize the configuration of the device in order to achieve the maximum displacement gain and the minimum angular deviation. A simple open-loop compensator is applied to reduce the hysteresis of the dynamic response of the stage. The experiment shows that the stage achieved a vacuum-compatible device with a travel of greater than 100 mu m, a resolution of 0.04 mu m, and an angular deviation of less than 31.1 mu rad. The first natural frequency of the stage is 80 Hz and the settling time is approximately 50 ms. Compared with the uncontrolled condition, the controlled hysteresis is reduced significantly. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(98)05204-6].