Mechatronics 19 (2009) 562–570

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Mechatronics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mechatronics

Optimal design of high precision XY-scanner with nanometer-level resolution

and millimeter-level working range
Dongwoo Kang a, Kihyun Kim a, Dongmin Kim a, Jongyoup Shim a, Dae-Gab Gweon a, Jaehwa Jeong b,*
a
Nano-Opto-Mechatronics Lab., Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea
b
Department of Control and Instrumentation Engineering, Korea University, 208 Seochang-Ri, Jochiwon-Eup, Youngi-Gun, Chungnam 339-700, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This article presents the design and performance evaluation of a compact high precision XY-scanner pro-
Received 18 February 2007 viding nanometer-level resolution and a millimeter-level travel range. The proposed XY-scanner is com-
Accepted 14 January 2009 posed of a voice coil motor (VCM) and double compound linear spring flexure guide mechanism. The
challenge was to determine design variables properly while simultaneously satisfying the requirements
of high resolution, long working range, high response speed, and compact size, because the relationships
Keywords: between the design variables and the system parameters are complex. Therefore, we developed a design
Precision scanner
that would provide the optimal tradeoff in terms of design variables. The objective was to maximize the
Flexure mechanism
Voice coil motor
first resonant frequencies of the XY-scanner to increase response speed while limiting the size of the
Optimal design scanner to 100 mm  100 mm  50 mm. The XY-scanner was fabricated with optimally-designed values,
and its performance was evaluated. From the experimental results, the first resonant frequencies of XY-
scanner were 26.68 Hz for the X-axis and 22.79 Hz for the Y-axis. The measured results of the 10 nm res-
olution and 2 mm working range confirmed that the designed scanner could be successfully used in pre-
cision fields requiring nanometer-level resolution and millimeter-level travel range.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
High precision measuring technologies such as the scanning
probe microscope (SPM), atomic force microscope (AFM), electron
microscope, X-ray microscope, and confocal scanning microscope
are rapidly advancing via the development of semiconductor pro-
cessing technologies and biomedical technologies. Most of these
microscopes require a precise multiaxis scanner for sample scan-
ning [1–5], and many scanners with nanometer-level resolution
have been developed [4–8].
A flexure mechanism stage driven by a piezoelectric actuator is
a good example of a precise scanner, and its resolution is small en-
ough to be used in a precision microscope. However, the working
range of this scanner is limited to several tens of micrometers, thus
limiting the measurement range of any microscope employing it. It
is difficult to find commercially available compact scanners that
satisfy the requirements of both high resolution and extensive
working range.
There are many kinds of mechanisms to increase travel range
while maintaining high precision. These can be roughly divided
into two types of systems: dual servo and one servo. The dual servo
system has a coarse servo responsible for large motion, and a fine
servo responsible for high accuracy and high bandwidth [9]. The
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 41 860 1765; fax: +82 41 865 1820.
E-mail address: jaehwa@korea.ac.kr (J. Jeong).
dual servo system can be made to have high stability based on dis-
tributing work, but this requires a complicated structure to imple-
ment the two actuators. With such a system, it can be difficult to
obtain only one millimeter of travel.
The one servo system has many variations according the type of
guide and actuator. The first type is an electromagnetic motor
combined with air-bearings and magnetic bearings [10,11]. To pre-
vent parasitic motion, more than two actuators should be used;
however, this results in a complex system and control difficulties.
The second type is a piezoelectric motor such as an inchworm, and
an ultrasonic motor combined with a rolling guide [12,13].
Although this configuration has good positional stability with high
stiffness, it is not suitable for scanning motion due to the discrete
nature of the motion and to the induced friction.
To overcome these limitations, we present the development of a
novel compact high precision XY-scanner providing nanometer-le-
vel resolution and millimeter-level working range. The size of the
scanner is limited to 100 mm  100 mm  50 mm for compact-
ness. The proposed scanner is composed of leaf spring-based dou-
ble compound linear spring flexure guide mechanisms, and a voice
coil motor (VCM). Designing the scanner properly while satisfying
requirements of high resolution, long range, and compactness is
most challenging because there are many design variables, and
the relationships between them are complicated. Therefore, we
produced a design that provides the optimal tradeoff in terms of
design variables. For the process of optimization, leaf spring mech-

0957-4158/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mechatronics.2009.01.002
 D. Kang et al. / Mechatronics 19 (2009) 562–570
anisms were modeled via the generalized computer-based method
as proposed by Ryu et al. [14,15], and the VCM was modeled using
the permeance method [16]. The objective of the proposed design
is to maximize the first resonant frequencies of XY-scanner to in-
crease the response speed while satisfying a variety of constraints,
such as the working range constraint, the dimension constraints,
and the heat dissipation constraint. A description of our design
optimization process, and our performance evaluation of the pro-
posed XY-scanner fabricated with optimally designed values, are
presented in this paper.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The struc-
ture of the XY-scanner is described in Section 2. In Section 3, mod-
eling methods for the leaf spring mechanism and the VCM are
presented. The details of the optimal design, including the cost
function, constraints, processes, and results, are presented in Sec-
tion 4. The experimental results of our prototype scanner are pre-
sented in Section 5, and our conclusions are given in Section 6.
2. Structure of the XY-scanner
The main purpose of the proposed XY-scanner is to scan a sam-
ple with nanometer-level resolution over a millimeter-level work-
ing range. To satisfy these requirements, flexure guide mechanisms
based on a leaf spring and a VCM are selected. Generally, flexure
guide mechanisms using elastic deformation at the connection be-
tween two rigid bodies eliminate sliding contact friction, which of-
ten accounts for the motion errors of conventional slide-ways.
Therefore, flexure guide mechanisms have many advantages such
as negligible backlash and stick-slip friction, smooth and continu-
ous displacement, an almost linear displacement relationship be-
tween input and output, and an inherently infinite resolution.
The double compound linear spring mechanism [17] shown in
Fig. 1a, was selected to provide high precision for our scanner be-
cause it is free from parasitic motions and the effects of heat defor-
mation, due to its symmetric structure. To increase the working
range to the millimeter-level, leaf spring mechanisms having small
thicknesses were used. Decreasing the thicknesses of the leaf
springs is an effective way to achieve a millimeter-level working
range when the size of the scanner is limited. Although a mono-
lithic structure is better suited for a high precision scanner, an
assembly structure was adopted for our scanner due to the diffi-
culty in fabricating thin monolithic leaf spring guide mechanisms.
Because the considered design criteria of the scanner includes both
high resolution and long range, and negligible parasitic motions
which have influence on measurement uncertainty, the influence
Fig. 1. Schematic of proposed scanner: (a) leaf spring based double compound linear spring guide mechanism; and (b) guide mechanism combined with VCM.
563
of assembly error on parasitic motion was investigated in our pre-
vious work [18]. In addition, a VCM was installed as an actuator in
our scanner, rather than the piezoelectric actuator which is popu-
larly used in high precision scanners. The moving range of a VCM is
sufficiently large to achieve a millimeter-working range without
employing the magnifying mechanisms necessary to enlarge the
displacement of a piezoelectric actuator. In addition, it has theoret-
ically infinite resolution due to its frictionless characteristic. The
design concept of the double compound linear spring mechanism
combined with a VCM for one-axis scanning is presented in Fig. 1b.
The overall structure of the proposed XY-scanner is a stacked
configuration in which the X and Y motions are decoupled. The
two one-axis scanners have the same structure, wherein a coil
fixed on a primary platform and a magnetic circuit fixed on a plate
are connected by a double compound linear spring mechanism,
and the Y scanner is orthogonally stacked on the X scanner, as
shown in Fig. 2. However, there is an operational difference be-
tween the two scanners, in which the roles of the stationary part
and the moving part are reversed. The X scanner is a moving
coil-type VCM, and the Y scanner is moving magnet-type VCM.
3. Modeling of the XY-scanner
An analytical model was required to simulate the static and dy-
namic characteristics of the proposed scanner. Flexure mecha-
nisms based on a leaf spring were modeled via the generalized
computer-based method, which automatically generates equations
of motion, solves them numerically, and makes it possible to sim-
ulate static and dynamic characteristics. The VCM was modeled
using the permeance method, in which magnetic circuits can be
expressed and analyzed as though they were electric circuits.
Flexure mechanisms were modeled as rigid bodies connected
through translational or rotational springs. In the proposed scan-
ner, a total of six moving bodies are connected by sixteen leaf
springs, as shown in Fig. 2a. Lagrange’s equation was used to model
the system:
 
d @ðT  VÞ @ðT  VÞ
 ¼ Q i; i ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 6 ð1Þ
dt @ q_ i @qi
where T and V denote the kinetic energy and potential energy of the
system, respectively, Qi is the force vector, and qi is the displace-
ment vector of the origin T of the body i expressed as
qi ¼ xi yi zi hix hix hix . To solve Eq. (1), T and V must be de-
rived in terms of displacement vectors.
564 D. Kang et al. / Mechatronics 19 (2009) 562–570

Fig. 2. Overall structure of proposed scanner: (a) disassembled view; and (b) assembled view.

Z   Z !
3 2
Assuming that the body-fixed coordinate is located at the mass dz k1 Fz l k1 l l
center of each moving body, the kinetic energy can be determined Dz ¼ dx þ dx ¼ þ Fz  My
x dx G x A 3EIy Gbt 2EIy
by the diagonal M matrix
dz dz
1X 6 ¼ Fz þ My ð9Þ
T¼ q_ iT Mi q_ i ð2Þ dF z dM y
2 i¼1
Z
Mi ¼ diagðmi ; mi ; mi ; Ii;x ; Ii;y ; Ii;z Þ ð3Þ Mx l l dhx
Dhx ¼ dx ¼ Mx ¼ 3
Mx ¼ Mx ð10Þ
x GJx GJx Gk2 bt dM x
The elastic potential energy was obtained by summing the elastic
energies of all leaf springs: Z 2
dz M y ðxÞ l l
ð4Þ Dhy ¼ ¼ dx ¼  Fz þ My
dx x EIy 2EIy EIy
dhy dhy
where is the deformation of the kth spring with respect to the ¼ Fz þ My ð11Þ
global coordinate system, and is the kth leaf spring stiffness ma-
dF z dM y
trix with respect to the global coordinate system. In case of the kth Z 2
leaf spring connecting the ith body and jth body, the deformation of dy Mz ðxÞ l l dhz dhz
Dhz ¼ ¼ dx ¼ Fy þ Mz ¼ Fy þ Mz ð12Þ
the kth leaf spring could be expressed as [14,15] dx x EIz 2EIz EIz dF y dM z
ð5Þ 2 dx
3
dF x
0 0 0 0 0
where is the transformation matrix that expresses the displace- 6 7
6 0 dy
0 0 0 dy 7
6 dF y dMz 7
ment of the connecting point between the ith body and the kth leaf 6 7
spring in terms of the displacement of the origin of the body coor-
6
6 0 0 dz
dF z
0 dz
dM y
0 7
7
cl ¼ 6 7 ð13Þ
dinates. can be obtained as follows: 6
6 0 0 0 dhx
dMx
0 0 7
7
ð6Þ 6 7
6 dhy dhy 7
6 0 0 dF z
0 dM y
0 7
where is the rotation matrix for the global coordinate system 4 5
dhz dhz
and the kth local spring coordinate system, and kl is the leaf spring 0 dF y
0 0 0 dMz
stiffness matrix with respect to the local spring-fixed coordinate
system, as shown in Fig. 3. The compliances of a single leaf spring kl ¼ c1
l ð14Þ
are determined by the integrals in Eqs. (7)–(12), and the compliance
and stiffness matrix of the leaf spring are obtained from these inte- As a result, the following equation of motion was derived:
grals [19,20]:
Z
Fx l dx
Dx ¼ dx ¼ Fx ¼ Fx ð7Þ
x EA Etb dF x

Z   Z 3
! 2
dy k1 Fy l k1 l l ð15Þ
Dy ¼ dx þ dx ¼ þ Fy þ Mz
x dx G x A 3EIz Gbt 2EIz From Eq. (15), the mass matrix M and the stiffness matrix K of the
dy dy system were given and the resonant frequencies were obtained
¼ Fy þ Mz ð8Þ from the following eigenvalue equation:
dF y dM z
 D. Kang et al. / Mechatronics 19 (2009) 562–570
Fig. 3. Dimension of coordinate axes of the single leaf spring.
Fig. 4. Model of VCM: (a) schematic; and (b) magnetic flux lines in the magnetic
circuit; and (c) model of magnetic circuit.
 
K  x2 M ¼ 0
Note that the size of the M and K matrices is 36  36 since there are
six moving bodies, and each body has six degrees of freedom.
Fig. 5. Design variables of the X-scanner: (a) magnetic circuit part; (b) coil part – cross-section of coil block; and (c) leaf spring guide part.
565
To predict the actuating force of the VCM, its magnetic circuit
was modeled using the permeance method, and the flux density
in the air gap was calculated using this same model. Fig. 4 repre-
sents the model of the magnetic circuit of the VCM, and the calcu-
lated equation from the model is
P gap P yoke
Ugap ¼
ðP gap þ P leakage2 ÞðP magnet þ P leakage1 þ P yoke Þ  P yoke ðP magnet þ P leakage1 Þ
 Umagnet
ð17Þ
Ugap
Bgap ¼ ð18Þ
Ag
where Pm is the permeance of the magnet; Pg is the permeance of
the air gap; Py is the permeance of the yoke; Pleakage1 and Pleakage2
are the permeances related to the leakage flux at the magnet and
air gap, respectively, as shown in Fig. 4b; Umagnet = BrAm is the flux
generated by the magnet (Br is the residual flux density of the mag-
net and Am is the cross sectional area of magnet); Ugap is the flux in
the air gap; Bg is the flux density in the air gap; and Ag is the cross-
sectional area of the air gap. The magnet material used in the VCM
was NdFeB40, and S10C was used as a yoke.
4. Optimal design of the XY-scanner
An optimal design was formulated to achieve the best possible
performance from the proposed scanner. The sequential quadratic
programming (SQP) method for optimization was used to calculate
the direction and step size of the design variables, and to generate
the updated design variables.
4.1. Cost function
In flexure mechanisms, a more compliant flexure must be used
to increase working range due to the elastic limit of the spring
material. However, a more compliant flexure decreases the reso-
nant frequency of the system and lowers the response speed. Since
our target working range, 2 mm, was very large for a flexure mech-
anism limited to 100 mm  100 mm  50 mm in size, the resonant
frequency would decrease significantly. Therefore, the cost func-
tion for an optimal design, as shown in the following equation,
was selected to maximize the first resonant frequencies of the
ð16Þ XY-scanner to increase the response speed:
 2  2
1 1
f ¼ Wx þ Wy ð19Þ
x1n;x x1n;y
566 D. Kang et al. / Mechatronics 19 (2009) 562–570

Table 1 4.2. Design variables

Design variables of the X-scanner.

Symbol Design variable Design range (mm) The scanner models were described in the previous section. Be-
l Length of leaf spring 5 6 l 6 40 fore performing the optimization, we simplified the models to
b Width of leaf spring 5 6 b 6 30 make them more practical by reducing the number of design vari-
t Thickness of leaf spring 0.1 6 t 6 1 ables; i.e., dependent variables which can be determined by the
tc Thickness of coil block 0.2 6 tc 6 5 other independent variables were not included as design variables.
wc Width of coil block 1 6 wc 6 50
dc Diameter of coil wire 0.1 6 dc 6 0.7
First, a smaller air-gap thickness bg and larger coil block thickness
ty Thickness of yoke 1 6 ty 6 20 tc were required to obtain a higher VCM actuation force. However,
hy Height of yoke 1 6 hy 6 50 they are geometrically constrained by each other, as shown in
tm Thickness of magnet 1 6 tm 6 10 Fig. 5. Therefore, it was not necessary that these two variables be
determined independently. Coil block thickness tc was used as an
independent design variable, and air-gap thickness bg was deter-
where f is the cost function, Wx and Wy are the weight factors, and mined by bg = tc + tol. The value of tol was set at 0.7 mm consider-
x1n,x and x1n,y are the first resonant frequencies for the X and Y- ing the manufacturing and assembly tolerances, and the inevitable
axes, respectively. clearance for relative motion between the coil block and magnetic
circuit. Second, magnet length lm was determined by lm = wc + 4
(units in mm) to guarantee the constant magnetic flux density at
all effective volumes of coil block (where wc is the width of coil
block). Finally, the thickness of bodies was predetermined before
performing the optimization. For proper operation of the flexure
guide mechanism, it should be able to be assumed that most elastic
deformation is occurred at the flexure. For this assumption to be
valid, it is necessary that the thickness of each body should be
much greater than the thickness of the flexure. However, thick
bodies generally decrease the resonant frequency of the system
and the response speed. Because it is so burdensome that all body
flexibilities cannot be included into our flexure mechanism model,
the thickness of each body was determined by finding the smallest
value that could be assumed to be relatively rigid compared to
flexure mechanism using finite element simulation (I-DEAS, UGS
Corp.). In the X-scanner, nine variables (l,b, t, tc, wc, dc, ty, hy, and
tm) were selected as design variables as listed in Table 1. The same
design variables were selected for the Y-scanner, and thus eighteen
design variables were used in determining the optimal design.

4.3. Constraints

The optimization problem included a number of constraints to

Fig. 6. Constraint for assemblage: (a) regarding the height of the coil block; and (b)
regarding the width of the coil block.
satisfy several specifications. To satisfy the specification for a
2 mm working range, the VCM must have a sufficient actuating
force, and the stress generated at the flexure under maximum tra-
vel must be below the elastic limit. In this paper, variables related
to the X-scanner are expressed with the subscript ‘‘1,” and vari-
ables related to the Y-scanner are expressed with the subscript
‘‘2.” The constraints regarding the actuating force and the stress
can be expressed by the following inequalities:

Fig. 7. Optimal design result: (a) convergence profile of cost function; and (b) the converged cost function values from various initial points.
 D. Kang et al. / Mechatronics 19 (2009) 562–570 567

Table 2
Constant parameters for optimal design.

Constants Sf,stress Sf,force qmax (mm) E (GPa) G (GPa) rY (MPa) Wx Wy Bys (T)
Values 5 1.2 2 200 77 690 1000 1000 2

Table 3
Various initial points of design variables and optimal results (unfixed t1, t2). Table 5
Various initial points of design variables and optimal results (t1 = 0.25, t2 = 0.25).
Design variables (mm) Design variable sets
Design variables (mm) Design variable sets
Initial point Optimum value
Initial point Optimum value
S1 S2 S3 S4 SOpt
S1 S2 S3 S4 SOpt Sdesign
l1 5 40 20 40 25.84
b1 5 30 15 5 25.20 l1 5 40 20 40 24.95 24.95
t1 0.1 1 0.2 1 0.27 b1 5 30 15 5 27.08 27.13
l2 5 40 20 40 27.28 l2 5 40 20 40 27.48 27.40
l2 5 30 15 5 12.29 b2 5 30 15 5 12.27 12.46
l2 0.1 1 0.2 0.1 0.25 wc,1 1 50 20 50 24.09 24.30
wc,1 1 50 20 50 26.00 tc,1 0.2 5 2 0.2 2.05 2.03
tc,1 0.2 5 2 0.2 2.10 ty,1 1 20 3 1 6.27 6.33
ty,1 1 20 3 1 6.71 tm,1 1 10 3 1 5.24 5.16
tm,1 1 10 3 1 5.49 hy,1 1 50 15 50 32.10 32.09
hy,1 1 50 15 50 30.32 dc,1 0.1 0.7 0.3 0.1 0.30 0.30
dc,1 0.1 0.7 0.3 0.1 0.31 wc,2 1 50 15 50 14.74 15.35
wc,2 1 50 15 50 13.40 tc,2 0.2 5 2 0.2 2.71 2.47
tc,2 0.2 5 2 0.2 2.58 ty,2 1 20 3 1 2.69 2.83
tc,2 1 20 3 1 2.67 tm,2 1 10 3 1 2.08 2.00
tm,2 1 10 3 1 2.21 hy,2 1 50 20 1 27.04 27.19
hy,2 1 50 20 1 27.45 dc,2 0.1 0.7 0.3 0.7 0.33 0.32
dc,2 0.1 0.7 0.3 0.7 0.32

Table 4
Comparison between optimization results according to variations of t1 and t2.
ðrmax;moment;j þ rmax;clamp;j Þ  Sf ;stress
gi ¼  1  0 ði ¼ 3; 4; j ¼ i  2Þ;
rY
t1, t2 Cost Function
ð21Þ
t1 = 0.25, t2 = 0.2 2.6503
t1 = 0.25, t2 = 0.25 2.5678 where, rmax;moment ¼ 3 Et
rmax,moment is the stress generated by
q ,
2 l2 max
t1 = 0.3, t2 = 0.2 2.6538 the displacement of the flexure mechanism, rmax,clamp is the stress
t1 = 0.3, t2 = 0.25 2.6790
generated by a clamping screw, rY is the yield stress of the flexure
material, Sf,stress is the safety factor, E is the elastic modulus of the
K i  qmax  Sf ;force flexure material, t is the leaf spring thickness, and l is the leaf spring
gi ¼  1  0 ði ¼ 1; 2Þ; ð20Þ
F VCM;i length.
where K is the moving direction stiffness of each scanner, qmax is the To actuate the VCM while maintaining stability, the tempera-
maximum required travel range, Sf,force is the safety factor, and FVCM ture increase due to coil heating and the power consumption of
is the maximum actuating force of the VCM. the VCM should be limited as follows:

Table 6
Simulated characteristics of the XY-scanner (t1 = 0.25, t2 = 0.25).

Design variable sets

Start point Optimum value
S1 S2 S3 S4 SOpt Sdesign
Kx (N/lm) 0.2444 0.0039 0.0117 0.0005 0.0109 0.0109
Ky (N/lm) 0.2444 0.0039 0.0117 0.0005 0.0037 0.0038
Kz (N/lm) 7.5730 7.5730 3.8611 0.0242 1.7770 1.8465
Khx (Nm/mrad) 0.4680 21.4369 2.0099 0.0542 3.2254 3.3318
Khy (Nm/mrad) 0.4680 21.4369 2.4198 0.0542 1.1293 1.1843
Khz (Nm/mrad) 9.1795 216.5509 27.9553 9.6433 25.5432 26.0385
xn1,x (Hz) 416.052 5.129 35.964 7.510 29.318 29.169
xn1,y (Hz) 495.951 6.199 50.334 8.771 26.647 26.523
Bg,x (T) 0.3697 0.6466 0.5315 0.4994 0.6788 0.6788
Bg,y (T) 0.3697 0.6466 0.5366 0.4994 0.3969 0.4091
FVCM,x (N) 0.7567 18.5607 3.9795 26.8738 13.0807 13.0742
FVCM,y (N) 0.7567 18.5607 4.0076 0.3103 4.4316 4.5097
Active design All All None All None None
variables
Active g18, g19 g18, g19 g18, g19 g18, g19 g1, g2, g3, g4, g5, g6, g9, g10, g13, g14, g15 None
constraints
Violated g1, g2, g3, g4, g5, g6, g9, g10 g11, g12, g13, g14, g15 g1g2, g2, g3, g4, g5, g9, g10 g2, g3, g4, g5, g7, g9, g10, g11, g12, g13, g14 None None
constraints
568 D. Kang et al. / Mechatronics 19 (2009) 562–570

Fig. 8. Photos of fabricated XY-scanner: (a) XY-scanner; (b) X-scanner.

qs;j
gi ¼  1  0 ði ¼ 5; 6; j ¼ i  4Þ ð22Þ
qout;j
qpower;j
gi ¼  1  0 ði ¼ 7; 8; j ¼ i  6Þ ð23Þ
qmax;j

where qs is the heat generated by the coil, qout is the heat dissipa-
tion, qpower is the power consumption of the VCM, and qmax is the
maximum output power of the power supply. In addition, we limit
the flux density passing through the yoke to prevent saturation. The
flux density passing through the yoke is determined by the perme-
ance method, as mentioned previously.
By;i
gi ¼  1  0 ði ¼ 9; 10; j ¼ i  8Þ; ð24Þ
Bys
U U
where, Uy ¼ Ug þ Pgg Pleakage2 ; By ¼ Ayy , where Uy is the flux passing
through the yoke, Ay is the cross-sectional area of the yoke, By is
the flux density passing through the yoke, and Bys is the saturated Fig. 9. Experimental set-up: laser Doppler vibrometer used as position measuring
flux density for the yoke. instrument.
There are some constraints related to total size. For total size
limited to 100 mm  100 mm  50 mm, we can write
Lx;j
gi ¼  1  0 ði ¼ 11; 12; j ¼ i  10Þ ð25Þ
100
Ly;j
gi ¼  1  0 ði ¼ 13; 14; j ¼ i  12Þ ð26Þ
100
Lz;1 þ Lz;2
g 15 ¼ 10 ð27Þ
50
where Lx, Ly, and Lz are the X-direction size, Y-direction size, and Z-
direction size, of each scanner, respectively. Finally, there are some
constraints related to the assembly, as shown in Fig. 6. The height of
the coil block should be lower than the height of each scanner, and
the width of the coil block should be narrower than the width of the
platform wound by the coil. Additionally, some space is inevitably
required to assemble two scanners.
ch;j
gi ¼  1  0 ði ¼ 16; 17; j ¼ i  15Þ ð28Þ
bj
wc;2
g 18 ¼ 10 ð29Þ
ph;1
wc;1
g 19 ¼ 10 ð30Þ
ph;2
ph;2 þ 2phs;2
g 20 ¼ 10 ð31Þ
pw;1
ph;1 þ 2phs;1
g 21 ¼ 10 ð32Þ
pw;2

4.4. Optimal design

To solve the optimal design problem formulated in the previous

section, an SQP algorithm code in MATLAB was used. The SQP
method uses an iterative procedure, and it generates a quadratic Fig. 10. Frequency response function of (a) X-scanner, and (b) Y-scanner.
 D. Kang et al. / Mechatronics 19 (2009) 562–570
Fig. 11. 10 nm closed loop step response: (a) X, and (b) Y.
Fig. 12. ±1 mm closed loop step response: (a) X: +1 mm, (b) X: 1 mm, (c) Y:
+1 mm, and (d) Y: 1 mm.
programming (QP) sub-problem at each iteration and updates the
estimate, the Hessian of the Lagrangian. As this method does not
guarantee the global minimum, the optimal results from several
initial points were checked. Fig. 7a shows the convergence profile
of the cost function, wherein the cost function gradually converges
to a certain value. As shown in Fig. 7b, the cost function values
from several initial points converged to the same value. The values
of constant parameters used in the optimal design are summarized
in Table 2, and the obtained design parameters are given in Table 3.
However, because the thickness of the leaf spring that we can man-
ufacture is limited, it was necessary that we first determine these
values on the basis of the results shown in Table 3. After selecting
these parameters properly near the optimized values, the optimi-
zation was repeated, and the results are listed in Table 4. From
these results, both t1 and t2 were set at 0.25 mm. Finally, we carried
out the design optimization with fixed values of t1 and t2, and the
converged designed variables are given in Table 5. Table 6 shows
the simulated characteristics of the XY-scanner with the optimally
designed variables. The first resonant frequencies of the XY-scan-
ner were expected to be 29.17 Hz and 25.52 Hz.
5. Fabrication and experiment
The XY-scanner was fabricated using the optimally designed
parameters, as shown in Fig. 8. Fig. 9 shows the experimental setup
for testing the characteristics of the XY-scanner. As a sensor, a laser
Doppler vibrometer (LDV, Polytec. OFV 501 and OFV 3001) with a
minimum resolution of 2 nm was used to measure position. Two
569
experiments were carried out to evaluate the performance of the
scanner. In the first experiment, we measured frequency response
characteristics using the sine sweep mode of a dynamic signal ana-
lyzer (DSA, Hewlett Packard 35670A), and the results are presented
in Fig. 10. The measured values were 27.34 Hz and 22.79 Hz, show-
ing a difference of 6.7% and 12.0%, respectively, with the designed
values. These errors were caused by the difference between the
manufactured parameters and the theoretically optimized values,
and mainly by the leaf spring thickness difference. In the second
experiment, we evaluated positioning performance using a propor-
tional-integral-derivative (PID) control. The control was performed
using a PC with a 12-bit D/A and A/D converter (AT-MIO-16E-1,
National Instrument Corp.). As shown in Fig. 11, a fine positioning
resolution of 10 nm was achieved. The mean values of the errors
with respect to the set points are 0.340 nm for the X -axis and
0.048 nm for the Y -axis. Standard deviations of the errors were
3.92 nm and 2.97 nm for X and Y-axes, respectively. Fig. 12 shows
that a 2 mm travel range was also achieved.
6. Conclusion
A compact high precision XY-scanner to enlarge the measure-
ment range of precision scanning microscopes was proposed. The
scanner was composed of a voice coil motor (VCM) and double
compound linear spring flexure guide mechanisms to satisfy both
accuracy and travel range specifications, and to reduce parasitic
motion during scanning. To increase response speed, a modeling
and optimal design procedure was performed. Based on our opti-
mization results, the XY-scanner was fabricated and the first reso-
nant frequencies of the XY-scanner were 26.68 Hz for the X-axis
and 22.79 Hz for the Y-axis. The resolution was measured to be
10 nm, and a 2-mm moving range was achieved. The measured re-
sults confirmed that the designed scanner could be successfully
used in precision fields requiring nanometer-level resolution and
millimeter-level travel range.
Acknowledgement
Jaehwa Jeong’s work was supported by the Korea Research
Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (KRF-2005-
214-D00234).
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