Development of a novel large stroke 2-DOF micromanipulator for micro/nano manipulation

An electromagnetic actuated XY micromanipulator with completely decoupled characteristics is proposed in this paper. The design process, stiffness and kinematics analysis, and experimental study are performed. In order to improve the accuracy and decoupling performance, contact surface deformations, tensile and compression deformations of the flexures are taken into consideration. The mathematic models in terms of stiffness and kinematics models are derived based on the matrix displacement method, and then validated by using ANSYS and MATLAB software. A prototype is fabricated, and electromagnetic actuator is adopted due to the merits of low-cost, large stroke and non-contact driving. Each axis of the manipulator is driven by two actuators, so the end-effector can realize four quadrant motions. On account of model uncertainty, a repetitive controller is introduced. Open-loop and closed-loop experiments are conducted. Experimental results indicate that the proposed manipulator can be widely used in micro/nano positioning and manipulation applications.