Development of independently-controlled position and orientation manipulator for minute work

We propose and develop a novel type of manipulator for the minute work. It can not only independently control the position and orientation of the end-effector, but also control the translational motion along with the axis of end-effector by only one actuator in any orientation. By this mechanism, it is able to achieve a larger workspace with high precision comparing with the traditional proposed manipulator for minute work. From the result of measurement of accuracy for our prototype manipulator, it is shown that the error of the end-effector tip is within 50.0 /spl mu/m and repeated positioning error is within 2.0 /spl mu/m in the changing orientation process.