The Design and Control of a Rigid-Flexible Coupling Positioning Stage for Enhanced Settling Performance

Abstract Traditional high-speed precision motion stage (HSPMS) design pursues high-stiffness structure to achieve fast response. However, such structure leads to high-frequency disturbance near dead zone of friction, which causes poor performance in controlling HSPMS. To this end, this paper proposes the active disturbance rejection control (ADRC)-based mechanical design to reduce the bandwidth of friction disturbance and improve the control performance of HSPMS. It is proved that the low-frequency disturbance can be more effectively tackled by the extended state observer (ESO) in the frame of ADRC. In particular, rigid-flexible coupling (RFC) positioning stage is presented for converting the high-frequency friction disturbance into the low-frequency elastic deformation disturbance by flexure hinges. The experimental tests are carried out for both traditional stage and RFC stage. It is clearly shown that compared with traditional design, the control performance of RFC stage is remarkably promoted.