• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.12
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• pp.88-94
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• 2007

A flexure hinge-based compliant stage driven by stack-type piezoelectric elements has high precision motion but small operational range due to the characteristics of the piezoelectric element. Since the common flexure hinges can be broken by excessive deflection when the displacement is amplified by a high amplification ratio, a flexure hinge mechanism for large deflection is required. A cartwheel-type flexure hinge has an advantage of larger deflection compared with the common flexure hinges. This study presents a rotation stage with cartwheel-type flexure hinges driven by a stack-type piezoelectric element. The characteristics and the performance of the rotation stage are described by the terms of principal resonance frequency, amplification ratio of rotational displacement, maximum rotational displacement and block moment, in which the terms are analyzed by geometric parameters of the rotation stage. The analyzed results will be used as the guideline of the design of the rotation stage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.989-992
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• 2002

This paper presents a procedure far design, modeling and analysis of a fine positioning stage. The stage considered here is composed of flexure hinges, piezoelectric actuators and their peripherals. Through a series of analysis, the structural analysis model is simplified as a rigid body(the moving part) and springs (the flexure hinges). An experimental design procedure is applied to determine optimum design variables for flexure hinges. The optimum variables are validated through a numerical test. A sensitivity analysis on the notch positions is also performed to obtain a guideline of fabrication accuracy for the stage.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.881-886
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• 2009

This paper presents a manipulation system consisting of a coarse/fine XY positioning system and an out-of-plane manipulator. The object of the system is to conduct tine positioning and manipulation of micro parts. The fine stage and the out-of-plane manipulator have compliant mechanisms with flexure hinges, which are driven by stack-type piezoelectric elements. In the fine stage, the compliant mechanism plays the roles of motion guide and displacement amplification. The out-of-plane manipulator contains three piezo-driven compliant mechanisms for large working range and fine resolution. For large displacement, the compliant mechanism is implemented by a two-step displacement amplification mechanism. The compliant mechanisms are manufactured by wire electro-discharge machining for flexure hinges. Experiments demonstrate that the developed system is applicable to a fine positioning and fine manipulation of micro parts.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.9 s.174
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• pp.130-136
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• 2005

This paper presents an optimal design and the performance evaluation of two-axis nano positioning stage with round notched flexure hinges. A flexure hinge mechanism with round notched flexure hinges is to guide the linear motions of a moving plate in the nano positioning stage. A Min-Max algorithm is applied to the design of the flexure hinge mechanism for nano positioning stage. In the design process, the structure of the flexure hinge mechanism is fixed, then the radius of a round hole and the width of two round holes are chosen as design variables, and finally the do sign variables are calculated by the Min-Max algorithm. The machined flexure hinge mechanism, stack type PZTs for actuation and capacitance type displacement sensors for position measurement are assembled into the nano positioning stage. The experimental results of the manufactured nano positioning stage show the first modal resonance frequency of 197 Hz, the operating range of 40 um, and the resolution of 3 nm.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.39-44
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• 2006

Ultra precision positioning mechanism has been widely used on semiconductor manufacturing equipments, optical spectrum analyzers and cell manipulations. Ultra precision positioning mechanism consists of several actuators, sensors, guides and control systems. Its efficiency depends on each performance of components. The object of this study is to design and analyze the micro stage that is one of the equipments embodied in ultra precision positioning mechanism. The micro stage consists of PZT actuators and flexure hinges. The structural design of flexure hinge is optimized by using RSM and FEM. The control factors concerned with the design of flexure hinges of stage and arms are optimized by minimizing the equivalent stress on the hinge and maximizing 1st natural frequency based on RSM and FEM simulation under various kinds of design conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.742-745
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• 2003

Piezoelectric elements driven ultra-precision stages have been used for high accuracy, fast response and high load rapacity. which are allowable to apply the stages to AFMs. Most of the piezoelectric driven stages are guided by flexure hinges for force transmission and mechanical amplification. However the flexure hinge mechanisms cause lack of position accuracy due to coupled and parasitic motions. Hence it is important that the mechanism design of the stage is focused on the stiffness of the flexure hinges to accomplish fast response and hish accuracy without the coupled and parasitic motions. In this study, some constraints for optimal design of a piezoelectric elements driven stage and a design method are proposed. Next, an optimal design is carried out using mathematical calculation. Finally the designed results are verified by FEM.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.665-666
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• 2006

In precision laser microfabrication, focusing is essential to acquire good machining precision and uniform machining quality. If it does not perform, laser machining cannot be realized. So, confocal scanning method with high depth resolution is used for focus detection technique. This paper is concerned with a procedure for design, analysis and performance test of an autofocus fine actuating stage, which is composed of flexure-hinge type lever mechanism and piezoelectric actuator. Through series of analytical design, the stage is simplified as a rigid bodies(lever and main body) and springs(flexure hinges). The simplified model was applied to determine the dimension of flexure hinges and lever. After structural analysis confirmed design requirement, an actual stage was made and verified through an experiment on the static and dynamic characteristics(maximum stroke and 1st natural frequency). The fabricated stage was satisfied with the design requirement.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.798-803
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• 2009

This paper proposes a grating scanner which is driven by a stack-type piezoelectric element. The mechanism of the grating scanner is based on flexure hinges. Using some constraints, the compliant mechanism is designed and then verified by Finite Element Analysis. The designed compliant mechanism is manufactured by wire electro-discharge machining, and then integrated with a stack-type piezoelectric element for actuation and a capacitance displacement sensor for measuring ultra-precision displacement. Experiments demonstrates the characteristics and the performances of the grating scanner using the terms of working range, resonance frequency, bandwidth and resolution. The grating scanner is applicable to a Moire interferometry for measuring 3-dimensional microscopic surface.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.54-59
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• 2005

Recently, the ultra-precision stage is widely used in the fields of the nano-technology, specially in AFMs(Atomic Force Microscope) and STMs(Scanning Tunneling Microscope). In this paper, the ultra-precision stage which consists of flexure hinges, piezoelectric actuator, and ultra-precision linear encoder, is designed and developed. The guide mechanism which consisted of flexure hinges is analyzed by Finite Element Method. And we derived the transfer function of the system in 1st order system from step responses according to the magnitude. We performed simulation for the model to tune the control gain and applied the gains to the developed system. Experimental results found that the stage can be controlled in 5 nm resolution by PID controller.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.106-113
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• 2009

A 6-DOF precision stage was developed based on parallel kinematics structure with flexure hinges to eliminate backlash, stick-slip and friction and to minimize parasitic motion coupled with motions in the other-axis directions. For the stage, lever linkage mechanism was devised to reduce the height of system for the enhancement of horizontal stiffness. Frequency response comparison between experimental results and mathematical model extracted from dynamics of the stage was performed to identify the system parameters such as spring constants and damping coefficients of actuation modules, which cannot be calculated accurately by analytic methods owing to their complicated structures. This newly developed precision stage and its identified model will be very useful for precision positioning and control because of its high accuracy and non-coupled movement.