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Design principle of high-precision flexure mechanisms based on parasitic-motion compensation

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Abstract

In design of flexure mechanism, diminishing the parasitic-motion is a key point to improve the accuracy. However, most of existing topics concentrate on improving the accuracy of linear-motion flexure mechanisms via compensating the parasitic error, but few research the multi-dimensional flexure mechanisms. A general design principle and method for high-precision flexure mechanisms based on the parasitic-motion compensation is presented, and the proposed method can compensate the parasitic rotation in company with translation, or the parasitic translation in company with rotation, or both. The crucial step for the method is that the parasitic motion of a flexure mechanism is formulated and evaluated in terms of its compliance. The overall compliance matrix of a general flexure mechanism is formulated by using screw theory firstly, then the criteria for the parasitic motions is introduced by analyzing the characteristics of the resultant compliance matrix as well as with aid of the concept of instantaneous rotation center. Subsequently, a compliance-based compensation approach for reducing parasitic-motion is addressed as the most important part. The design principles and procedure are further discussed to help with improving the accuracy of flexure mechanisms, and case studies are provided to illustrate this method. Finally, an analytical verification is provided to demonstrate that the symmetry design philosophy widely used in flexure design can effectively improve accuracy in terms of the proposed method. The proposed compensation method can be well used to diminish the parasitic-motion of multi-dimensional flexure mechanisms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Shouzhong Li

  2. Robotics Institute, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Jingjun Yu

Authors
  1. Shouzhong Li
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  2. Jingjun Yu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shouzhong Li.

Additional information

Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No. 51305022), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China(Grant No. FRF-TP-13-013A), and National Science Foundation for Post-doctoral Scientists of China(Grant No. 2012M520163)

LI Shouzhong, born in 1983, is currently a Post-PhD at School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, China. He received his PhD degree from Beihang University, China, in 2012. His research interests include flexure mechanisms.

YU Jingjun, born in 1974, is currently an associate professor at Robotics Institute, Beihang University, China. His research interests include compliant mechanisms, parallel mechanisms, and robotic geometry.

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Li, S., Yu, J. Design principle of high-precision flexure mechanisms based on parasitic-motion compensation. Chin. J. Mech. Eng. 27, 663–672 (2014). https://doi.org/10.3901/CJME.2014.0415.076

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3901/CJME.2014.0415.076

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