Nanometric Positioning Over a One-Millimeter Stroke Using a Flexure Guide and Electromagnetic Linear Motor

In this study, we investigated experimentally the potential of a planer positioning mechanism with three degrees of freedom using a flexure guide and an electromagnetic linear motor. The goal was to produce a multi-axis positioning system with nanometric resolution over a 1-mm stroke. An $X-Y-\theta$ stage was designed based on previous results from a single-axis prototype and was constructed with a flexure guide mechanism and voice coil motor type linear actuators. We examined the necessity of a driving method and control system to ensure high resolution for multi-axis positioning. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance, and the results confirmed the mechanism's potential; fine point-to-point (PTP) positioning was achieved over a 1-mm stroke, with a resolution of 2 nm for translation in X-Y and 0.01 asec for yaw in $\theta$.