Motion of a Micro/Nanomanipulator using a Laser Beam Tracking System

Abstract

This article presents a study of the control problem of a laser beam illuminating and focusing a micro-object subjected to dynamic disturbances using light intensity for feedback only. The main idea is to guide and track the beam with a hybrid micro/nanomanipulator, which is driven by a control signal generated by processing the beam intensity sensed by a four-quadrant photodiode sensitive detector (PSD). Since the pointing location of the beam depends on real-time control issues related to temperature variation, vibrations, output intensity control, and collimation of the light output, the 2-D beam location to the PSD measurement output must be estimated in real-time. To this aim, a Kalman filter (KF) algorithm is designed to predict the beam location to perform efficient tracking and following control approach. Hence, a robust master/slave control strategy of the dual-stage micro and nanomanipulator system is presented based on sensitivity function decoupling design methodology. The decoupled feedback controller is synthesized and implemented in a 6-DoF micro/nanomanipulator allowing few centimeters displacement range with a nanometer resolution. A relevant case study, related to laser-beam tracking for imaging purposes, validates experimentally the proposed framework.