Design of a high speed and high precision 3 DOF linear direct drive

Summary form only given as follows. Developments in microelectronics, micromechanics and microelectromechanical systems (e.g. micromotors, microsensors) require significant improvements in manufacturing tools for mass productions. Especially the assembling tools have to become faster and more precise. Many assembly devices use XY stages driven by DC servomotors with ball screws or parallel structures; others use linear drives with traditional ball bearings. Only a few devices use linear drives together with air bearings, but always together with an angular guide for X and Y direction. The novel approach presented in this paper is based on linear drives together with a planar air bearing. In contrast to other stages, it doesn´t need any angular guide. This reduces the moved mass and leads to higher accelerations. It consists of an arrangement of four identical moving coils attached to a slide, which is suspended by a planar air bearing. This new configuration allows a workspace of 60×60 mm/sup 2/ and an acceleration exceeding 10 g with a resolution better than 100 nm. This paper gives an overview of the system and focuses on the design and characterization of the moving coils.