Design and analysis of a dual-mode driven parallel XY micromanipulator for micro/nanomanipulations

This article presents a novel design of a flexure-based, piezoelectric actuated, completely decoupled, high-bandwidth, highresolution, and large stroke parallel XY micromanipulator with two amplification levers. The monolithic mechanism is featured with dual working modes, which meets different kinds of requirements in terms of high resolution and large workspace in micro/nano fields. In order to reduce the displacement loss, the modeling and analysis of bending motion of the levers are conducted; thereafter, compliance and stiffness modeling by employing the matrix method are established. Furthermore, the dynamics modeling and analysis via Lagrange equations are performed to improve the dynamic properties of the mechanism. The simulation results of finite element analysis indicate that the cross-coupling between the two axes is kept to 1.2%; meanwhile, the natural frequency of the mechanism is about 700 Hz, and the amplifier ratio is approximately 2.32. Both theoretical analysis and finite element analysis results well validate the performance of the proposed mechanism.