Coarse/fine motion control of a teleoperated autonomous piezoelectric nanopositioner operating under a microscope

A small "intelligent" autonomous multidegree of freedom mobile nanopositioner is presented. It is controlled and operated remotely through a graphical user interface for coarse and fine positioning under a microscope. The motion principle of the mobile piezoelectric platform actuated by ultrasonic piezo-legs is presented. Its on-board control architecture comprises power, motion controllers, sensors and IR communication interface. In order to operate under the field of view of a microscope, a motion strategy based on on-board controllers and remote semi-automatic operation has been adopted in order to provide coarse and fine positioning. The closed-loop position schemes are theoretically considered and their results are demonstrated and evaluated in practice. Evaluations of experimental teleoperated tests indicate that a positioning resolution less than 10 nm are successfully achieved for an unlimited X-Y travel range with linear speeds between 1 mm.s/sup -1/ and several cm.s/sup -1/.