Fabrication of Piezo-Driven Micro-positioning 3-degree-of-freedom Stage using 3-dimensional printer

Abstract

This paper presents the design and fabrication of a piezo driven micro-positioning 3-degree-of-freedom stage constructed using a 3D printer. Flexure hinges and parallel lever structures of a micro-stage were fabricated with nylon-based resin polyactic acid (PLA). The maximum stress were reduced on the flexure hinges, and the requiring force to drive the microstage is decreased. So, design and fabrication in the multi-degree-of-freedom precision stage are made more flexible. Assessment system using vision camera were developed for the fabricated 3-degree-of-freedom stage. The motion amplification is very linear and 0.5 ȝm stepping was demonstrated. As a result, a shorter production time and cost reduction using by the 3-D printer with PLA resins, and efficient multi-degree-of-freedom precision stage production method was proposed.