Design and testing of a 5-degrees-of-freedom, large working range micropositioning stage

This paper discloses the design principles of a compact 5-degrees of freedom piezoelectric micropositioning stage. The presented system exhibits the capability of generating large displacements, while maintaining a simple and modular structure. Due to a double-stage mechanical amplification strategy of the displacements generated by the piezoelectric actuators, the driving voltages can be kept low while reaching the desired performances in terms of amplitude of the working volume, thus allowing for the use of low-cost electronics. Experiments conducted to assess the static performances of a prototype device are in good agreement with the theoretical models. Possible applications include micromachining, micromanipulation and other positioning tasks in scientific instrumentation.