Structure Design of a Parallel Micromanipulator Driven by Linear Ultrasonic Motors

A two-finger micromanipulator driven by linear ultrasonic motors is proposed, which has the nanoscale positional accuracy and the millimeter-scale operating space, thus the practicability of micromanipulator is improved.A design scheme based on parallel mechanism is demonstrated.Linear ultrasonic motors are taken as the sliding pairs and flexure hinges are taken as the revolute pairs to drive the micromanipulator.Mechanism theory is used to explain how the micromanipulator works.Kinematics model is established by the ADAMS software to analyze the output characteristics, including the size of operating space, and the relation between the time and the position, velocity, acceleration of the probe.Linear ultrasonic motors are used to simplify the structure and increase the operating space of the micromanipulator.Flexure hinges as revolute pairs can ensure a nanoscale positional accuracy.A prototype of the micromanipulator is fabricated and preliminary experiments are conducted.Experiments show that the proposed micromanipulator can realize real-time operation of micro particles, the position resolution of its probe achieves 100 nm, and the working displacement of the micromanipulator achieves 2 mm.