Design and development of a three degrees-of-freedom flexure mechanism in the XYZ

Abstract

This report aims to summarise the FYP results of the author on Flexure-Based Parallel Mechanisms. Flexure-based Parallel Mechanisms are extensively being used in the micro technology and micro motion manipulation areas. Flexure Mechanisms replaces traditional mechanisms by changing traditional joints into flexible, compliant joints to provide range of motion or perform the tasksrequired. Due to this property they usually come in one entire part. Hence, they have various advantages such as frictionless, no backlash and can achieve highly precise motion. Because of these properties they are highly precise and thus they have been adopted in micro technology equipment such as silicon manufacturing. With the various advantages that Flexure Mechanisms offer. Many research projects have been done on the topic, especially so, in the two degrees of freedom XY mechanisms and recently there has been an increase in the research of XYZ flexure mechanisms as well. With the increasing complexity in technology and silicon processor design, there is a need for further development in the XYZ plane which offer a wider range of motion which may be required to manipulate the technology. However, there is still the challenge of making a design that can achieve high accuracy and precision in the Nano metre scale with ease. In this report the Author discusses how he has proceeded in his FYP to search for an optimised Flexure Parallel Mechanism for the XYZ directions that is capable of achieving high accuracy and precision. Using a method of topology optimisation which combines Genetic algorithm with erosion and dilation techniques to achieve the desired result in a efficient manner