On the design of compliant-based micro-motion manipulators with a nanometer range resolution

In the last decades, there has been an increasing demand in the field of micromanipulation with high precision requirement. This motivated the development of a class of new devices, micro-motion manipulators or macromanipulators. This paper concerns some issues on designing a high-precision micromanipulator, which is based on "compliant mechanism" concept. The design rules for this kind of micromanipulators in terms of material, geometry, flexure hinges, actuators, motion and fabrication, are proposed in an imperative way. Based on these rules, the practical realization for the design of two compliant-based macromanipulators is described. The results of this paper are very useful for the design of compliant-based macro-motion systems.