A Survey on Recent Development of Large-Stroke Compliant Micropositioning Stage

Compliant micropositioning mechanism plays an important role in precise positioning and alignment applications. Unlike conventional guiding mechanism, compliant mechanism delivers motion through the deformation of flexible components. As a result, the movement of flexible mechanism is continuous and the structure is more compact, which makes it a hot research topic in the field of precision machine design. As the increase of demands for micropositioning stage providing large motion range and high precision, this paper conducts a state-of-the-art survey on recent development on large-stoke compliant microopsitioning stages. First, a basic introduction of the compliant micropositioning stage is presented. The type synthesis and mechanism structure design of the flexible component are reported, which are the decisive factors determining the stage performance. Then, the design method of flexure hinge is introduced. Afterwards, the development of large-stroke compliant mechanism in recent years is reviewed, and a comparison study of several typical large-stroke compliant micropositioning stage is carried out. The existing issues and future work on the large-stroke compliant micropositioning stage are summarized.