Conceptual Design of a Reconfigurable Fixture for Meso-milling

Fixture design is critical to the development of a mesoscale machining system capable of yielding micro-size features with high accuracies. A reconfigurable, intelligent fixturing system with embedded sensors is required (i) to fixture a large group of similar workpieces with minimal set-up changes, (ii) to sense the location of the workpieces placed on the fixture, (iii) monitor clamping forces, etc. In this paper, the conceptual design for such a fixturing system is presented. The proposed design is based on conventional macro-scale modular fixturing principles with innovative features for meso-scale fixturing.