Micropositioning Platform with Piezo Tube Drives from PI Ceramic
Juhász László, who is an assistant at the Faculty of Technology in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, has developed a platform capable of unlimited movement in the x and y directions and providing less than 0.1 ?m incremental step resolution. The manipulation of samples in electron microscopes (SEM) or other types of online inspection have been reported as possible fields of application. The device can be battery powered and operated by remote control. Three PT130.90 piezoelectric tubes from PI Ceramic were used. The fundamental platform setup is illustrated in Fig. 24. The legs with ball ends are attached to the piezo tubes and are clearly visible in the picture.
 
 

Fig. 26: Micropositioning platform setup.

Fig. 24: Structure of the platform with PZT legs.

Fig. 25: Prototype with on-board controller

 The tube actuators can bend in all directions if differentially controlled due to the use of quadrature electrodes. High resolution, coordinated motion is possible via suitable interplay between the motion of the individual legs. An integrated control platform prototype is depicted in Fig. 25, while a schematic representation of the entire system is given in Fig. 26.