Development and Analysis of a Novel Large Range Voice Coil Motor-driven 3-DOF XY⊖ Micro-positioning Mechanism

This paper presents the design and analysis of a novel large range 3-DOF xy theta micropositioning mechanism. The design is completely planar, making it easier to monolithically manufacture using Wire EDM. The 3-DOF motion is achieved based on a new type of VCM driven prismatic-prismaticrevolute (PPR) joint constructed to offer two translation and one rotation with a limited parasitic motion. A combination of a multi-leaf flexure spring mechanism, a compound double parallelogram mechanism, and a double leaf trapezoidal mechanism is used to realize this new PPR joint. The ability of leaf flexures to offer large deformation allowed this type of joint to provide large translation and rotation. The inverse kinematics is derived analytically by utilizing the geometric relations between the PPR joints and the moving platform. Computational analysis is conducted to verify the analytical inverse kinematics and to study the workspace, static and dynamic responses of the proposed mechanism. The FEA results demonstrated that this mechanism could provide a workspace of +/- 2.5mm in translation and 2.4 degrees in rotation with a relatively high first natural frequency.