Development of a Compact 1-D Micromanipulator with Flexure Manufactured Using Rapid Prototyping

Abstract

Presented is the design and initial experimental results of a compact 1-D micromanipulator. The presented manipulator is a piezoelectric actuator based complaint mechanism with a compact translational flexure manufactured using rapid prototyping. Rapid prototyping allows complicated designs with low manufacturing costs. Analytical and Finite Element (FE) models for designing the flexure are presented. The simulation results are compared with experiments conducted on a prototype. Nonlinear stiffness is measured and evaluated. The importance of pre-loading force is investigated. Trajectory tracking tests at different frequencies are performed on the manipulator. The maximum and root mean square errors are analyzed.