Experimental Characterization of a Large-Range Parallel Kinematic XYZ Flexure Mechanism

Abstract

Abstract Previously, we reported the conceptual design of a novel parallel-kinematic flexure mechanism that provides large and decoupled motions in the X, Y, and Z directions, along with good actuator isolation, and small parasitic error motions (Awtar, S., Ustick, J., and Sen, S., 2012, “An XYZ Parallel-Kinematic Flexure Mechanism With Geometrically Decoupled Degrees of Freedom,” ASME J. Mech. Rob., 5(1), p. 015001). This paper presents the detailed design and fabrication of a high-precision experimental setup to characterize and validate the motion attributes of this proposed flexure design via comprehensive measurements. The unique aspects of this experimental setup include a novel modular construction and exact-constraint assembly of the flexure mechanism from 12 identical parallelogram flexure modules. The flexure mechanism along with the sensing and actuation setup in the experiment is designed to enable large range (10 mm) in each direction. Experimental measurements and finite-elements analysis demonstrate <3% variation in motion direction stiffness, 20.4% lost motion, <11.6% cross-axis error, <3.3% actuator isolation, and <9.5 mrad motion stage rotation over the entire 10 mm × 10 mm × 10 mm range of motion.