Performance evaluation of a flexure-based five-bar mechanism for micro/nano manipulation

This paper presents the design, fabrication and experimental methodologies for a flexure based five bar mechanism, which is indispensable for the applications of micro-nano scale operations. To overcome the limited displacement of such a flexure based mechanism driven by piezoelectric actuators, lever mechanisms are used to enlarge the working range in Cartesian space. The mechanical design of the micro-manipulator is firstly described. Based on the configuration of the proposed flexure based mechanism, the kinematic model is developed. The linearised relationship between the actuation space and the Cartesian space is derived according to the kinematic analysis. Finite element analysis (FEA) is carried out to guarantee the long-term repeatability accuracy and examine the performance of the developed compliant mechanism. Experiments are implemented to cross validate the characteristics of the developed flexure-based mechanism.