Mechatronic design of a novel linear compliant positioning stage with large travel range and high out-of-plane payload capacity

Most of the XY positioning stages proposed in previous studies are mainly designed by considering only a single performance indicator of the stage. As a result, the other performance indicators are relatively weak. In this study, a 2-degree-of-freedom linear compliant positioning stage （LCPS） is developed by mechatronic design to balance the interacting performance indicators and realize the desired positioning stage. The key parameters and the coupling of the structure and actuators are completely considered in the design. The LCPS consists of four voice coil motors （VCMs）, which are conformally designed for compactness, and six spatial leaf spring parallelograms. These parallelograms are serially connected for a large travel range and a high out-of-plane payload capacity. The mechatronic model is established by matrix structural analysis for structural modeling and by Kirchhof^s law for the VCMs. The sensitivities of the key parameters are analyzed, and the design parameters are subsequently determined. The analytical model of the stage is confirmed by experiments. The stage has a travel range of 4.4 mm 7.0 mm and a 0.16% area ratio of workspace to the outer dimension of the stage. The values of these performance indicators are greater than those of any existing stage reported in the literature. The closed-loop bandwidth is 9.5 Hz in both working directions. The stage can track a circular trajectory with a radius of 1.5 mm, with 40 Ixm error and a resolution of lower than 3 ~tm. The results of payload tests indicate that the stage has at least 20 kg out- of-plane payload capacity.

NEW PRECISION PIEZOELECTRIC STEP ACTUATOR

A new precision piezoelectric actuator is proposed to improve its drive capabilities. The actuator is based on the piezoelectric technology. It adopts the principle of bionics and works with a new method of stator initiative anchoring/loosen and a distortion structure of double-side thin flexible hinge. It solves the problem of anchoring/loosen, frequency, journey, resolution and velocity. The experiment shows that the new linear piezoelectric actuator works with high frequency （100 Hz）, high speed （502 μm/s）, large travel （〉10 mm）, high resolution （0.05 μm） and high load （100 N）. This kind of new piezoelectric actuator will be applied for large travel and high resolution driving device, optics engineering precision positioning and some micromanipulation field.

Monitoring traveling ionospheric disturbances using the GPS network around China during the geomagnetic storm on 28 May 2011

Larger-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances （LSTIDs） are studied using the total electron content （TEC） data observed from 246 GPS receivers in and around China during the medium storm on 28 May 2011. It is the first attempt to get the two-dimensional TEC perturbation maps in China. Two LSTID events are detected： one is in southwestern China before mid- night propagating from low to middle latitude to the distance of about 1200 km with the phase front extending to about 500 km, and the other is in northeastern China after midnight propagating from middle to low latitudes to the distance of about 1200 km with the phase front extending to nearly 1400 km. By using the multichannel maximum-entropy method, we get the propagation parameters of these two LSTIDs. The LSTID that occurs before midnight has a higher horizontal phase velocity and a larger damping rate corresponding to the after midnight LSTID, and this may be caused by the relatively large vertical back- ground TECo and high atmospheric temperature in the southwest of China before midnight. According to the variations of magnetic H component observed in high latitudes, the source region for the after midnight LSTID is likely to be located 1400-2600 km east of 140E and north of 42N; the before midnight LSTID is propably excited by the atmospheric gravity waves （AGWs） generated by the Joule heating of the equatorial electrojet.