WHITE PAPER

Achieving high precision in

linear stages without costly
air bearings
By: Alexander Bromme
Managing Director, Steinmeyer FMD
George Jaffe
Executive VP, Steinmeyer Inc.

2012 Steinmeyer GmbH & Co. KG

White Paper
Measurement applications in biomedical, semiconductor, and optical industries demand
highly accurate linear stages. Typical specifications in applications such as surface
topology machines, for example, include a maximum deviation of 1 micrometer in
position and straightness/flatness over a travel range of 100 millimeters or more.
Such high-precision requirements are usually satisfied by using air-bearing stages with
linear motors a high-tech but very expensive solution. Besides the basic high cost
and larger size of such stages, preventing damage in an emergency requires additional
systems to monitor air pressure and motor power, which further increases cost and
technical complexity.
By combining many years of experience in manufacturing high-precision stages with the
use of special components, Steinmeyers FMD division achieves remarkable precision
with classical cross-roller bearings and high-quality Steinmeyer ball screws. These
solutions are especially cost-effective, smaller in size, and easier to use compared with
air-bearing systems.

Dual-Speed Stacked Positioning System

The key special component is a decoupling system that isolates any transverse movement of the ball screw from the linear bearing system and saddle of the stage.
Even though the linear bearings in Steinmeyers precision stages are dramatically
oversized, their stiffness is not infinite. Disturbance forces can elastically deform the base
plate, bearing, and saddle, interfering with the straightness and flatness of the entire
stage system.

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External influences, such as the application itself, can introduce such forces, of course,
but these are either minimal or nonexistent in most measurement operations. More
significant are internal disturbance forces caused by the eccentricity of the ball screw
nut while the screw rotates. Since the stage saddle normally connects directly to the
nut, transverse forces from the nut affect the stage system adversely by contributing to
runout. By applying flexure designs well known in piezo-micropositioning stages,
Steinmeyer FMD has developed a solution that virtually eliminates these effects.
Flexures have no play or surface friction, so wear, stick-slip, and lubrication are
definitely of no concern. Flexures can, however, overload easily, so precision operation
requires careful engineering. The simplest form of a flexure is a single flat spring that is
fixed at one side and acted on by a force at the opposite side. This type has low stiffness
in the bending direction but very high stiffness in the shear direction, which is the same
direction as the ball screw drive.

Figure 1: simple flat spring 3D, at rest, under transverse load

This transverse force deforms the flat spring, which not only creates lateral movement
but produces bending, as evident in Figure 1. When this happens, the upper and lower
surfaces of the spring are no longer parallel. While the flexure compensates the transverse force, the result is additional and undesirable torque.
This disadvantage can be minimized by combining two of these flat springs to form a
parallelogram assembly. This enables lateral compensation without detrimental torque.

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Figure 2: parallelogram spring assembly 3D, at rest, under transverse load

While the upper and lower surfaces of the assembly remain perfectly parallel, there is
also a visible reduction of overall height as a side effect of the lateral displacement. In
reality, this effect is mostly negligible in our example, typically a contraction in the
range of 10 nanometers.
The exact direction of the transverse force coming from the ball screw, however, can
vary. It is always orthogonal to the driving direction, but can be anywhere between
horizontal and vertical with respect to the base plate of the stage.
Hence, it is necessary to use two independent, orthogonally arranged flat spring parallelogram units as a decoupling arrangement (see Figure 3). Whatever the direction of
transverse forces, this arrangement only transmits actuating forces of the ball screw
(high shear stiffness) and compensates any disturbance forces (low bending stiffness).

Figure 3: double parallelogram assembly 3D, at rest, under load

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Figure 4: ball screw driven linear stage with decoupling mechanism

Figure 4 shows an example of a linear stage using a decoupling arrangement. The
precision linear bearing between the saddle and the base is the main component
determining straight-line motion. The side-mounted ball screw drive assembly includes
thrust bearing, rear support bearing, coupling, and DC motor. The ball screw nut
connects to the saddle by the decoupling device (shown in blue).
Steinmeyer ball screws usually have a transverse nut movement of less than 2 micrometers. Considering the number of parts and their intricate geometry, this is an amazingly
small value! Nevertheless, this 2-micrometer peak-to-peak disturbance causes a
systematic periodic waviness with an amplitude of 500 nanometers peak-to-peak or
greater. For many high-precision measurement applications, 500 nanometers of
waviness is unacceptable.

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Figure 5: stage flatness without decoupling unit

Figure 5 shows flatness runout for a travel range of 50 millimeters. Clearly there is a
sinusoidal waviness with a wavelength of 2 millimeters that directly matches the ball
screw pitch. The measured runout is 500 nanometers peak-to-peak.

Figure 6: stage flatness with decoupling unit

Figure 6 shows the same measurement after installation of the decoupling assembly.
The previous significant waviness is almost completely gone. The remaining magnitude
is less than 50 nanometers, which is 10 times lower than before. The dominant error is
now a long-period deviation over full travel, which is negligible in most applications or
which can easily be compensated (the two graphs show the same data with and without
compensation).

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Figure 7: actual decoupling assembly from PMT160 stage series

The decoupling unit (see Figure 7) is assembled from parts made from spring steel, tool
steel, and brass. Tests with monolithic designs, where spring elements are cut by wire
EDM from a solid steel block, did not yield significant performance or price advantages.
The technology of decoupling devices is standard in the PMT160 stage series from
Steinmeyer. Production-proven in more than 1,000 units, this method brings obvious
benefit to our customers precision applications. With typical deviations in straightness
and flatness of 50 nanometers over 50 millimeters travel, these stages represent a
cost-effective alternative to air-bearing systems.
A typical application for stages with decoupling devices is high-precision instruments
that measure roughness or surface topology. Adding such a stage to a standard twodimensional profilometric roughness measuring instrument would enhance a
3D-topography system. Instead of a single profile, a number of parallel profiles would be
available, which could then be combined in software to yield a three-dimensional image
of the object surface.

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About Steinmeyer
Steinmeyer, Inc., is the North American subsidiary of the German-based August Steinmeyer group. It offers the most precise industrial positioning systems available today,
from Steinmeyer Feinmess Dresden (FMD), a preferred supplier of mechatronic systems
worldwide. It also supplies and supports the full line of world-class, high-precision ball
screws manufactured by Steinmeyer GmbH & Co., KG. Besides an extensive range of
standard offerings, the company specializes in products customized to meet very
specific application requirements. The Steinmeyer group has produced engineering
innovations of the utmost precision and quality for more than 130 years. To learn more
about the company and its products, please visit Steinmeyer.com or contact Steinmeyer,
Inc., at 781-273-6220.

Steinmeyer, Inc.
56 Middlesex Turnpike, Suite 200
Burlington, MA 01803 USA
JSkaltsas@steinmeyer.com
Tel.: +1 (781) 273 6220

2012 Steinmeyer, Inc.

All rights reserved.
1259502 01/12

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