Delta3: A new ultra-high precision micro-robot: Design and control of a flexure mechanism

In the fields of micro-positioning, micro-manipulation and micro-machining, the required motion precision is continuously increasing. The demand also increases for high dynamic performances (large bandwidth, high closed loop stiffness, etc.). In many cases an inappropriate mechanical structure prevents to achieve these objectives. The use of flexure mechanisms and parallel kinematics allows to reach them. Thanks to these choices, mechanical structures are light-weighted and free of backlash, wear, and stick-slip. This paper presents through an example, the design procedure and the control of a flexure-based robot. The example used is a three degrees of freedom (dof) parallel robot (X, Y, Z) that is a transposition in a flexure mechanism of the Delta robot kinematics.