A parallel MEMS guide mechanism with beam-based motion amplifier

This paper studies a novel parallel kinematic XY mechanism design. The MEMS XY mechanism usually constrained by the limits of fabrication, material property and actuator, is hard to get a large work space. This XY mechanism design is featured for high precision, large stroke and compact size. Based on the kinematic model of the displacement amplifier, the Pseudo Rigid Body Model (PRBM) of the guide mechanism, and the fabrication limitation, the optimization of the geometry is studied. Furthermore, Finite Element (FE) models are built for analyzing the displacement amplifier and the whole XY mechanism. The XY mechanism is very compact, and the size is only 5 mm × 5 mm. However, it can produce a 150 μm × 150 μm stroke. Compared with other designs, the XY mechanism has a quite large work space with a compact size.