Abstract
The accuracy, repeatability and speed requirements of high-power laser operations demand the employment of five degree of freedom motion control solutions that are capable of positioning and orientating the target with respect to the laser(s)-target interaction point with high accuracy and precision. The combined serial and parallel kinematic (hybrid) mechanism reported in this paper is a suitable candidate for this purpose; however, a number of error sources can affect its performance. A kinematic model to analyse the errors causing the positional and orientational deviations of the target is described considering two rotational degrees of freedom of the hybrid mechanism. Strategies are outlined to simplify the error analysis and to determine the error parameters of the mechanism using the error model and an experimental technique.
Highlights
IntroductionPulsed lasers with high power (petawatt class lasers) have seen significant development in the last few decades
Pulsed lasers with high power have seen significant development in the last few decades
An error model is developed by establishing the kinematic relationships between the parallel mechanism and the other key components of the hybrid mechanism, and by considering the mechanism’s two rotational motions and their associated error motions
Summary
Pulsed lasers with high power (petawatt class lasers) have seen significant development in the last few decades. To utilise the full potential of high-power lasers, large-scale facilities need to operate at high-repetition rates, which presents many engineering challenges [3,4] One such challenge is the positioning and aligning of a micro-scale target (or in short ‘target’) relative to the focus of the laser beam(s) with an accuracy of few micrometres - a fundamental requirement for a high-power laser-target interaction to ensure that targets are reproducibly accessible to the highest intensities available, that is in the region of the laser beam focus as determined by the Rayleigh range [5,6]. To meet the specifications for target positioning accuracy and to achieve the required speed of high-repetition rate laser operations, the Central Laser Facility (CLF) has designed and developed a new high-accuracy microtargetry system (HAMS) for mounting and motion control of targets for the Astra-Gemini high-power laser [7,8]
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