Design, Development and Analysis of Additively Manufactured and Assembled XY Compliant Precision Scanning System

Additive manufacturing (AM) is showing promising results in manufacturing technology and could be the next generation of industrial revolution. This paper presents an application based on AM in the field of precision scanning system. Rigid link scanning mechanisms limit accuracy of positioning due to several factors such as friction, backlash in joints. Notably, flexural mechanisms offer great advantage in micro- and nano-position accuracy. Flexural mechanism, unlike sliding or rolling motions of rigid links, generate motion from the intrinsic flexibility of the material. Here, we present a cost effective and less-waste generating fabrication approach of flexural mechanism via AM. Different limbs of the stage are first modularly fabricated by a desktop fused filament fabrication (FFF) printer and later assembled. System identification (static i.e. force deflection curve and dynamic i.e. frequency response curve) are carried out using standard test methods. An experimental model is estimated for development of a closed loop control algorithm. Various close loop control experiments (set point control and trajectory tracking control) are conducted and accuracy of less than 5 μm is achieved at the scanning speed of 5 mm s−1. Such fast and customized XY flexural mechanisms have numerous applications ranging in micromachining, biomedical imaging, and organ manufacturing.