INTRODUCTION Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) based micro-positioning stages are critically important in many micro/nano manipulation and manufacturing applications. Such stages have been extensively used in micro-force sensors, scanning probe microscopy and micro optical lens scanners [1-4]. While there is no unique definition for a micro-positioning stage, it generally refers to a syst...

Piezoelectric actuators (PEAs) have been widely used in microand nanopositioning applications due to their fine resolution, fast responses, and large actuating forces. However, the existence of nonlinearities such as hysteresis makes modeling and control of PEAs challenging. This paper reviews the recent achievements in modeling and control of piezoelectric actuators. Specifically, various meth...

The works presented in this article are motivated by the high performances required in micromanipulation/microassembly tasks. For that, this paper presents the developement, the modelling and the control of a 2 degrees of freedom (in linear and angular motion) micropositioning device. Based on the stick-slip motion principle, the device is characterized by unlimited strokes and submicrometric r...

This paper describes the design of a flexure-guided, two-axis nanopositioner (scanner) driven by piezoelectric stack actuators. The scanner is specifically designed for high-speed scanning probe microscopy (SPM) applications, such as atomic force microscopy (AFM). A high-speed AFM scanner is an essential component for acquiring high-resolution, three-dimensional, time-lapse images of fast proce...

Signal transformation is a novel strategy employed in feedback control to reduce the impact of measurement noise on positioning accuracy. This chapter addresses robustness issues of the method with respect to output disturbance and uncertainty in plant low frequency gain. The robustness problems can be solved by an inner loop with integral action before incorporating the signal transformation m...

High performance nanopositioning stages, used in a variety of applications such as atomic force microscopy and three-dimensional nanometer-scale lithography, require stringent position control over relatively large displacements and a broad frequency range. Piezoelectric materials, which are typically employed in nanopositioining stages, provide excellent position control when driven at relativ...