1114 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 15, NO.

2, FEBRUARY 2015

Optimum Design of a Dual-Range Force Sensor for

Achieving High Sensitivity, Broad Bandwidth,
and Large Measurement Range
Jun Jiang, Weihai Chen, Member, IEEE, Jingmeng Liu, Wenjie Chen, Member, IEEE, and Jianbin Zhang

Abstract— Force control is very crucial in nanoimprint lithog-

raphy (NIL). It is necessary to develop a high-performance force
sensor to provide real-time force feedback for the control process.
Due to the unique procedure of NIL, the developed force sensor
should include a high sensitivity, broad bandwidth, and large
measurable range. However, these characteristics are normally
conflicting in nature and cannot be physically avoided by any
force transducers so far. To address this problem, this paper
presents a novel dual-range force sensor, and uses a heuristic
multiobjective optimization method to make a tradeoff among
these characteristics. This method is based on the particle swarm
optimization algorithm, meanwhile employs the Pareto ranking
scheme to find optimal solutions. Through proper optimiza-
tion, not only the three characteristics are compromised, the
lowest stress concentration of the sensor body is maintained
as well. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the optimization,
numerical simulations with finite-element software COMSOL are
conducted. A prototype sensor is then fabricated according to the
optimization results. The simulation and prototype test results
indicate that the optimized sensor has a resolution down to
800 µN, a bandwidth up to 150 Hz, and a measurable range
up to 180 N. All the results prove that the developed force
sensor possesses a good property for high-performance force
measurement, and satisfies the needs of NIL as well.
Index Terms— Force sensor, compliant mechanism,
nanoimprint, structural optimization.

I. I NTRODUCTION
Fig. 1. Schematic representing the two stages in nanoimprint lithography:

N ANOIMPRINT lithography (NIL) is a novel method of

fabricating micro/nano-meter scale patterns. It relies on
the direct mechanical deformation of the resist for transferring
(a) the parallelism error adjusting process and (b) the imprint force holding
process.

the pre-defined structures on the template to the substrate.
Manuscript received August 11, 2014; revised August 31, 2014; accepted
September 24, 2014. Date of publication September 30, 2014; date of
current version November 26, 2014. This work was supported in part by
the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 51275018
and Grant 51475017, in part by the Specialized Research Fund for the Doc-
toral Program of Higher Education of China under Grant 20131102110010,
and in part by the Innovation Foundation of BUAA for Ph.D.
Graduates under Grant YWF-14-YJSY-010. The associate editor coordi-
nating the review of this paper and approving it for publication was
Dr. Stefan J. Rupitsch.
J. Jiang, W. Chen, and J. Liu are with the School of Automa-
tion Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Bei-
jing 100083, China (e-mail: junjiang@buaa.edu.cn; whchen@buaa.edu.cn;
jmliubuaa@gmail.com).
W. Chen is with the Mechatronics Group, Singapore Institute of Manufac-
turing Technology, Singapore 638075 (e-mail: whchen@buaa.edu.cn).
J. Zhang is with the School of Mechanical Engineering, Beihang University,
Beijing 100083, China (e-mail: jbzhangbuaa@gmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2014.2360885
1530-437X © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
Since its first publication by Chou et al. [1] in 1996, many
researchers have devoted themselves to this area and developed
different variations and implementations. NIL is believed
to be a promising technology to replace the conventional
photolithography method for semiconductor industry due to
its low cost, high throughput and high resolution character-
istics [2]–[4]. In a general plate-to-plate (P2P) nanoimprinter,
parallel alignment between the template and the substrate plays
a critical role in assuring the uniformity of the imprinted
structures [5], [6]. Compared to position feedback control,
force control is a better alternative because force signal is
believed to be more direct and is less likely to be influenced by
the thickness of the photoresist layer. A force sensor with high
performance is therefore required to equip the nanoimprint
machine.
Unlike conventional applications, NIL has raised a strict
standard for developing force sensors. Fig. 1 shows the simpli-
fied schematic of a typical P2P nanoimprinter. The imprinting
JIANG et al.: OPTIMUM DESIGN OF A DUAL-RANGE FORCE SENSOR
process mainly includes two phases. The first phase starts from
the imprint head moving downward to the template touches the
substrate. In this phase, the small initial contact force will be
used to fine tune the orientation of the imprint head for parallel
alignment. To measure this small contact force, the force
sensor should be made extremely sensitive. The second phase
is when the template fully presses the substrate. In this phase,
the imprint force may go up to several hundreds of Newton.
To monitor this force, the measurable range of the force
sensor should be wide enough. In addition, the nano-imprinter
needs to fit into a step-and-repeat imprint process. The step-
and-repeat nanoimprint lithography is promising technique to
replicate nanoscale pattern at low cost across a large area [7].
The repeat frequency ranges from several Hz to several tens
of Hz. In order to adapt itself to the imprint frequency, the
force sensor should include relatively a high bandwidth which
is defined as the frequency at which the phase response is
30° lagged. Normally, the higher the bandwidth, the quicker
the mechanical response.
However, conventional force sensors are usually limited
in range by their sensitivities. The sensor either has a high
sensitivity with small range or has a large range with low
sensitivity. Furthermore, the sensitivity and bandwidth are
two conflicting characteristics. Take the case of a common
force sensor [8], most of the time, it is made of some
beam-like structures, each one bending easily around one
axis. The measurement of the structure displacement or strain
is related to the force in that direction. Thus, in order to
obtain greater sensitivity, the beam-like structures need to
be made more compliant. On the contrary, to achieve higher
bandwidth, the structures should be made more stiff, resulting
in a higher resonant frequency. Hence the paradox. Tradi-
tional force sensors typically optimize one performance at the
expense of the others [9]–[11], except the work published by
Wood et al. [12]. They optimized the sensitivity and bandwidth
of a two-dimensional force sensor by maximizing the sensor
quality, Q, which is defined as the product of the sensitivity
√ natural frequency of the sensor body (Q ≡ f × 1/k ∝
and
1/ (k · m)). The reasons why the authors can use such
method lie in two aspects: 1) the optimization problem only
have two objectives, 2) the two objectives are to maximize and
minimize the corresponding performance, respectively. If there
are more objective functions or the objectives are both to
maximize or minimize the performance, this method cannot
be used.
Regarding the optimization of sensor structures, the litera-
ture can mainly be classified into three categories, i.e. 1) Use
topology optimization method to optimize the sensor’s shape
in order to realize a specific function [13]. 2) Use DOE to
test the sensor’s performance and therefore find the optimum
solution [14]. 3) Relate the sensor model to the sensor perfor-
mance and use a specific algorithm to optimize the geometric
variables [9]. A survey of the literature reveals that most
existing work optimized only one or two performances of a
force sensor and leaving the other performances unoptimized,
seldomly has anyone tried to optimize the sensor performance
comprehensively.
1115
To address this problem, this paper presents a novel dual-
range force sensor that is capable of resolving forces with
two different sensitivities within a wide range, meanwhile
uses a multiobjective particle swarm optimization method [15]
to compromise the three characteristics. This optimization
process also allows the designer to make an informed decision
by seeing a wide range of optimal trade-off solutions from an
overall standpoint.
At the present time, a plate-to-plate (P2P) nanoimprint
machine is being constructed in our team. A dual-range force
sensor is therefore required to equip this device to provide
real-time force feedback during the entire imprinting process.
The proposed force sensor has two unique features. The first is
the dual-range characteristic. The developed sensor structure
possesses two different stiffness values which enables the force
sensor to increase its measurement range without sacrificing
its sensitivity, such a device has not been reported previously
in the literature. The second is the optmized performances.
In order to obtain high sensitivity, broad bandwidth, and large
measurement range at the same time, a new optimization
procedure has been developed to optimize the sensor’s
geometric parameters. Very few researchers have tried to
optimize all the three performances simultaneously.
The rest of this paper proceeds as follows. The sensor model
is described in Sec. II, where its operational principle and
some general analysis are discussed. Then, two multiobjective
design optimization problems formulated to optimize the force
sensor are presented and solved in Sec. III. Sec. IV details the
optimization results, which successively address the conflicting
requirement of high sensitivity, broad bandwidth and large
measurable range of the force sensor. Afterward, a series of
simulations and prototype tests are implemented in Sec. V.
The later section sketches the nanoimprint machine embedding
the current and future developments. Finally, some concluding
remarks are made in Sec. VI.
II. S ENSOR M ODEL OVERVIEW
A. Operating Principle and Concept Design
According to the aforementioned analysis, the different
phases in nanoimprint lithography have raised a strict require-
ment for the development of force sensors. The developed
force sensor should include at least a high sensitivity and
a wide range to provide real-time force feedback for both
parallel alignment and imprint force maintaining. For this
reason, we propose the conceptual design of a dual-range
force sensor. Its first range is used for small scale and
high sensitivity force measurement, while its second range is
employed for large scale and low sensitivity force measure-
ment. This function is realized by using the concept of contact-
aided compliant mechanisms (CCMs). CCMs are a class of
compliant mechanisms where the compliant members come
into contact with one another to perform a specific task or to
improve the performance of the mechanism itself [16].
Fig. 2 shows the operating principle of the sensor body,
where the two springs, which have the effective stiffness
values of kin and kout , represent the two groups of flexures
1116 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 15, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015

the length, width and thickness of an individual inner beam,

respectively (defined in Fig. 3(b)).
Similarly, the overall stiffness of the outer group of flexures
can be calculated by:
3 w
4Etout out
kout = 3
(2)
lout
where lout , wout and tout are the length, width and thickness
Fig. 2. Simplified working principle of the dual-range force sensor.
of an individual outer beam, respectively. Given the serial and
parallel connections of these flexures, the equivalent stiffness
of the force sensor in the first range is given by:
in the compliant mechanism. To yield two motion ranges for kin kout
the movable plate, an intermediate stage and two mechani- k1 = . (3)
kin + kout
cal stoppers are linked and placed in certain places. Once
a force is applied to the movable stage, both springs are C. Dynamic Analysis
stretched. The overall equivalent stiffness can be calculated by
k1 = kout kin /(kout + kin ). Afterwards, if the applied force Another metric of interest is the natural frequency because
continues to increase in the forward direction, the motion the sensor bandwidth is delimited by the first resonant mode.
of the intermediate stage will be stopped by the stopper In order to calculate the natural frequency, we use an energy
when translating over a distance of δ. Under this situation, method to relate the kinetic and potential energy to that of an
only the spring kin is deformed, the overall stiffness of the idealized system. This method has been detailed in ref. [12].
mechanism becomes k2 = kin . The force information can For brevity, we just give the result as follows:
be obtained by measuring the displacement of the movable 
1 k2
stage. If the resolution of the measurement unit is , the f2 = , (4)
force resolution for the first and second range will be k1  2π m eq2 + m mov
and k2 , respectively (the sensitivity of the force sensor is just 26
m eq2 = 4 × × ρ × lin win tin (5)
the displacement sensor sensitivity divided by this stiffness). 35
Hence, the dual ranges are realized. where f 2 is the natural frequency of the sensor body in the
Given the forgoing analysis, an embodiment of the proposed second range, m eq2 is the equivalent mass of the overall inner
force sensor is designed. The solid model is shown in Fig. 3(a), beams, ρ is the density, and m mov is the mass of the movable
its projection in the x-y plane is depicted in Fig. 3(b). As one stage.
can see, the sensor body contains 8 clamped-guided beams Substituting Eq. (1) and Eq. (5) into Eq. (4) yields
and two carefully placed hard-stoppers. The beams are divided 
into two groups, i.e. the outer group and the inner group. The 3 w /l 3
4Etin
1 in in
outer group are those connect to the base frame and support f2 = . (6)
2π 4 × 35 × ρ × lin win tin + m mov
26
the intermediate stage, while the inner group are the remaining
beams. The embeded capacitive sensor is employed to detect Concerning the natural frequency in the first range, it is
the displacement and then convert it to force information a little bit complicated because there are two moving stages
through a calibration procedure. This non-contact sensing during the measurement (the intermediate stage and the
scheme helps to minimize mechanical complexity and bring movable stage). Assuming that the internal damping of the
down noise interference. system can be neglected, the differential equations governing
the motion of the system in a free vibration situation are
presented as follows:
B. Kinetostatics Analysis     
0 m mov + 4m eq2 0 ẍ mov (t)
Since the sensor stiffness is correlated with the sensor reso- =
0 0 m int + 4m eq1 ẍ int (t)
lution, and therefore the sensitivity, the equivalent stiffnesses   
k −kin ẋ mov (t)
are calculated. Considering that the parameters of the inner + out (7)
flexures solely affect the sensor performance in the second kin kout + kin ẋ int (t)
range, the design process starts from the determination of the where m eq1 is the equivalent mass of the total outer beams,
parameters of the inner flexures. The total equivalent stiffness it can be calculated by
of the inner group of flexures can simply estimated using
26
Euler-Bernoulli beam theory as [17]: m eq1 = 4 × × ρ × lout wout tout . (8)
35
3w
4Etin
12E Iin in Solving Eq. (7) in the frequency domain yields
k2 = kin = 4 × = (1)
3
lin 3
lin ⎛  ⎞
 
1 ⎝A+ D A−D 2
where E is the Young’s modulus of the material, Iin is the f1 = − + BC ⎠. (9)
moment of inertia for the beam flexure. lin , win and tin are 2π 2 2
JIANG et al.: OPTIMUM DESIGN OF A DUAL-RANGE FORCE SENSOR 1117

Fig. 3. Illustration of a dual-range force sensor: (a) the CAD model and (b) its projection in the x-y plane.

where f 1 is the natrual frequency in the first range. The where σ yield is the yield stress of the material, S f is the safty
parameters A, B, C and D are defined as follows: factor selected according to the designer’s experience.
kin + kout −kin
A= , B= ,
m int + m eq1 m int + m eq1 III. PARAMETERS O PTIMIZATION
−kin kin The goal of developing a high performance force sensor is
C = , D= . (10)
m mov + m eq2 m mov + m eq2 to obtain high sensitivity, broad bandwidth, large measurement
Substituting Eq. (10) into Eq. (9), the natural frequency of range and long fatigue life. There are totally six parameters
sensor body in the first range is obtained. It is obvious that that define these performances, wherein the width of the two
f 1 is lower than f 2 , hence the bandwidth of the force sensor groups of the flexures are set to be equal to simplify the
is determined by f 1 . optimization procedure. In order to determine the optimal cross
section of the flexures, two multiobjective optimization prob-
lems with three objectives each are formulated. The geometric
D. Working Range and Stress Analysis parameters to be optimized are lout , tout , lin , tin , and win . The
Generally, the sensor’s measurable range is associated with optimization problems are defined by the following equations.
the stroke of the compliant mechanism. The longer the stroke, Problem 1:
the larger the measurable range. Considering that the two
motion ranges of the force sensor play different roles during Min. k2 = 4Etin
3
win /lin
3

the measurement. The first range is intended for high 3 w /l 3
4Etin
1 in in
sensitivity and small range force measurement, while the Max. f 2 =
2π 4 × 35 × ρ × lin win tin + m mov
26
second range is specialized for large range force measurement.
Therefore, for the first range, we only calculate the maximum Max. x = σ yield lin
2
/3S f Etin +δ
von-Mises stress generated, and try to minimize this stress Subject to. lblin ≤ lin ≤ ublin
value to get a longer fatigue life in the next section. While for lbwin ≤ win ≤ ubwin
the second range, we analyze the maximum working distance
lbt in ≤ tin ≤ ubt in
of the sensor body.
Problem 2:
In view of the sensor structure in Fig. 3(b), the maximum
von-Mises stress generated in the first range can be calculated Min. k1 = kin kout /(kin + kout )
⎛  ⎞
by [18], [19]  
  1 A+D A−D 2
Max. f 1 = ⎝ − + BC ⎠
3Etout δ 3kout Etin δ 2π 2 2
σ1 = max
max
2
, 2
(11)
lout kin lin  
3Et out δ 3k out Et in δ
where δ is the clearance between the base frame and the Min. σ1max = max 2
, 2
intermediate stage. lout kin lin
When measuring in the second range, only the inner group Subject to. wout = win
of flexures are stretched. To avoid plastic deformation of the S f σ1max < σ yield
flexures, the maximum working distance is delimited by the lblout ≤ lout ≤ ublout
yield stress of the material. It is of the form
lbt out ≤ tout ≤ ubt out
σ yield lin
2
As mentioned earlier, the inner group of flexures solely
x = + δ. (12)
3S f Etin affect the performance of the sensor in the second range.
1118 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 15, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015

Hence, Problem 1 and Problem 2 represent the optimization

in the second and the first range, respectively. Once Problem 1
is solved, the results will be substituted into Problem 2,
then Problem 2 will be worked out. Both optimization prob-
lems aim at minimizing the stiffness which is related to the
sensor sensitivity and maximizing the natural frequency that is
associated with the sensor bandwidth. The only difference is
the third objective. Problem 1 tries to maximize the working
distance to obtain a larger measurable range, while Problem 2
aims at minimizing the maximum von-Mises stress to get a
longer fatigue life. This difference is determined by the design
preference. The first inequality in Problem 2 ensures that the
material is safe. The remaining inequalities in both problems
define the lower and upper bounds on the six geometric para-
meters. These lower and upper bounds are determined based
on the performance requirement and geometric constraints of
the physical system where the force sensor is implemented.
The two optimization problems formulated both have three
objectives. Since they are multiobjective optimization prob-
lems, they are difficult to solve, because there is no unique
solution; rather, there is a set of acceptable trade-off solutions.
To solve these problems, the concept of Pareto optimality and
Pareto front should be used. Pareto optimality is a state of
allocation of resources in which it is impossible to improve
any one individual without sacrificing at least the other one
individual. The set of Pareto optimality is called Pareto front. Fig. 4. Schematic representation of the MOPSO procedure for structure
A Pareto front member will not perform better than any design of the force sensor.
other member with respect to a particular objective function
without sacrificing performance in another objective function.
For example, the Pareto front in this optimization problem is maximum allowable iterations 100, inertial weight w = 0.73,
3-D in nature because there are three objective functions and personal and global learning coefficients c1 = c2 = 1.5. The
compares stiffness, natural frequency, and working range or PSO parameters are chosen based on the authors’ experience
maximum von Mises stress simultaneously. A designer can with the algorithm. For population size, archive size and
analyze these Pareto fronts to understand the effect of geo- maximum allowable iterations, normally the larger the better.
metric parameters on the performance metrics, and therefore However a larger size or iteration number will cost more
choose a suitable solution according to the design preference. computation resources. So these three parameters are chosen
Although conventional gradient based algorithms could after several trials. Regarding the inertial weight and the
be used to solve these optimization problems, but such learning coefficients, w normally takes the value between
approaches rely on the fact that the problems to be solved 0.4 and 0.9, c1 and c2 take values between 1.0 and 2.0.
should be convex. Moreover, these approaches involve evalu- The parameters chosen have proven to be acceptable for most
ating the gradients with respect to each design variable. If there cases [24].
are too many design variables, the optimization process could
be computationally expensive. Hence, the heuristic algorithms IV. O PTIMIZATION R ESULTS
like Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs) are
better alternatives. A survey of the state of the art of As mentioned in the introduction, the target application of
the MOEAS, the Multiobjective Particle Swarm Optimiza- the force sensor is the measuring of the imprint force in a
tion algorithm (MOPSO) is the most efficient, robust and P2P nanoimprint machine. Its goal is to provide real-time
simplest [20]. It has been implemented in a variety of force feedback, i.e. to restore the information of contact
real-world problems such as structural optimization [21], coming from the substrate and template. For this applica-
parameter identification [22], and controller design [23], etc., tion the desired resolution and bandwidth are specified as
suggesting that MOPSO can be used with confidence. MOPSO 1 mN and 100 Hz, respectively. In addition, the largest
normally uses an external archive to store the non-dominated measurement range should be greater than 120 N. With these
population and employs the Pareto ranking scheme to select minimum constraints, the analytical model described can be
the best solutions. It can provide the designer with multiple used to determine the lower and upper bounds on the design
optimized solutions in just a single run. The flow diagram variables. These parameters used during the optimization
of the algorithm used to solve the optimization problems are are summarized in Table I. Moreover, the clearance (δ) is
shown in Fig. 4. The parameters needed for the algorithm determined to be as small as possible, defined by the
are configured as follows: population size 80, archive size 35, manufacturing limitations. Hence, it is fixed to be 0.25mm.
JIANG et al.: OPTIMUM DESIGN OF A DUAL-RANGE FORCE SENSOR
TABLE I
L OWER AND U PPER B OUNDS ON THE D ESIGN VARIABLES
Fig. 5. Pareto front of sensor optimization in the second range.
Fig. 6. Pareto front of sensor optimization in the first range.
The safety factor of the material S f is set to be 1.5 based on
the authors’ experience.
Since there are three objective functions in each design
optimization problem, the obtained Pareto fronts are 3D in
nature. However, it could be hard to visualize the results
in 3D. Hence, the 2D plots are utilized here. For each design
optimization problem, comparing two objectives at a time
will generate three plots, so six plots will be given in total.
For brevity, we use a specialized 2D plot to demonstrate the
result of each problem. In the specialized 2D plots, the natural
frequency in the second range and the maximum von-Mises
stress in the first range are represented by the size and color of
the marker. Since the problems are multiobjective optimization
problems, the results are not one optimal solution but a set
of optimal designs that are part of the Pareto fronts. Fig. 5
and Fig. 6 show the results of the two optimization problems,
respectively.
When optimizing in the second range, the main objective
is to obtain larger measurement range that is proportional
1119
TABLE II
R ESULTS OF G EOMETRIC O PTIMIZATION
to the stroke of the mechanism. However, the range is also
delimited by the displacement sensor used. So the best design
in the second range would probably be located at the center
of the plot with a larger marker size. On the contrary, when
optimizing in the first range, the main task is to get higher
sensitivity, hence the best design in this range would be located
at the lower left corner of the plot with a smaller marker
size. The decision maker can choose optimal designs from the
Pareto fronts based on the desired sensitivity, bandwidth and
required measurable range. In view of these considerations
and the requirement of nanoimprint lithography, the chosen
parameters that satisfy the design criterion are shown in
Table II. Note that the thickness of the outer flexures is the
lower bound of the parameter range. Actually the optimized
result was 0.303 mm. Considering the manufacturing tolerance
and limitations, we finally chose 0.3 mm for compromise.
V. S ENSOR P ERFORMANCE E VALUATION
Given the results of the optimization from the previous
discussion, a physical model is built to match the geometry
and material properties. In order to assess the performance
of the force sensor, finite element simulations and prototype
testing are carried out in this section.
A. FEA Simulation
The finite element analysis was performed in the COMSOL
software package with Solid Mechanics module. For static
performance evaluation, non-linear analysis with large defor-
mation and frictionless contact was used. A gradually
increased force was applied to the movable stage to produce
smaller and larger motions. The contact area was meshed
with extreme fine tetrahedron elements. Fig. 7 shows an
example of the resulting deformation and the position at which
the maximum stress occurs during the first motion range.
It can be observed from the simulation that both groups of
flexures deform when the force is less than 10 N. Afterward,
the intermediate stage came into contact with the stoppers,
only the inner group of flexures deformed. This phenomenon
confirms the design concept of the dual-range force sensor.
The results also reveal that the maximum allowable force
is around 210 N. The difference between analytical and
FEA results is about 5%. The error mainly arises from
the assumptions used for the analytical model, which only
consider the bending deformations of the leaf flexures.
1120
Fig. 7. FEA results for the basic sensing element. (a) Deformed shape and
(b) stress distribution.
For dynamic analysis, a harmonic force was applied to the
movable stage. The frequency response was determined by
measuring the displacement of the movable stage across a
wide range of excitation frequencies. The first two resonant
frequencies are 304.3 Hz and 2353.7 Hz, respectively. The
results indicate that the two mode shapes are both the trans-
lations along the working direction. The discrepancy between
the analytical and FEA results is about 13%. This discrepancy
is intentionally made by adding some additional mass to
the movable stage in order to make the simulation results
more close to the real situation, because there could be some
structural members attached to the movable stage during the
calibration process.
B. Prototyping and Testing
The prototype sensor is manufactured using low-speed
wire electrical discharge machining leading to a compact and
monolithic structure. The 7075 aluminum alloy is chosen to
build the basic sensing element. It has a Young’s modulus E
equals to 72 Gpa and a high yield strength σ yield up to
505 MPa. Regarding compactness, the external size of the
sensor body is only 50 mm × 48 mm × 12 mm. The
total mass is 38 g, and the movable part of the sensor has
a mass of 9 g which greatly increases the first eigenfre-
quency of the sensor. A capacitive sensor from Lion Precision
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 15, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015
Fig. 8. Experimental setup for sensor characterization.
Inc. (model: C8-02 with the CPL190 single channel signal
conditioner, 10 nm resolution, 40 mV·μm −1 , 500 μm sensing
range, and 15 kHz bandwidth) is selected to measure the
displacement of the movable stage. The output voltage signal
of the displacement sensor is acquired by a high-resolution
DAQ system (ADVANTECH PCI-1716), which provides a
16-bit resolution. The reason for choosing a capacitive sensor
rather than semiconductor strain gauges is that the strain
gauges suffer from high sensitivity to temperature drift,
and the application where the force sensor is implemented
will experience high temperature drift. Since the alignment
of the gap between the capacitive sensor head and the target
surface is crucial, a vision camera is used to assist with the
positioning.
A calibrating setup shown in Fig. 8 has been developed so
that the necessary measurements can be taken in a precise
manner. The setup has the ability to improve the reliability
and repeatability of the applied force during the calibration
process. The translational DOF is realized by a precision
motion stage. A commercial reference sensor from ATI Indus-
trial Automation Inc. (model: Mini 40) is assembled on the tip
of the motion stage to measure the applied force. In order to
provide better access to the sensor, an additional poking tip is
mounted on the Mini 40. The main axis of the reference sensor
and the tip are concentric. It is necessary to emphasize that
even though the Mini 40 is able to meausure 6-DOF forces,
only the normal direction is used in the calibration process.
The mechanical structure of the calibration setup ensures that
the normal force component of the reference sensor is identical
to the absolute force that is applied to the sensor’s tip. The
output force signal from the reference sensor is acquired by a
DAQ system from National Instruments Corp.
For static calibration, we relate the output voltage of
the capacitive sensor to that of the reference force sensor.
Thanks to the linear motion stage, the loading force can be
precisely controlled. In order to sketch an accurate force-
JIANG et al.: OPTIMUM DESIGN OF A DUAL-RANGE FORCE SENSOR
Fig. 9. Static calibration curve (output voltage versus reference force).
voltage profile of the dual-range force sensor, the loading
forces range from 0 to 8 N in 1 N setps, 8 N to 12 N in
0.4 N steps, and 12 N to 110 N in 10 N steps, respectively.
The loading ranges were selected according to the sensitivity
of the sensor considering the simulation results. The forces
were added on top of the sensor and then removed gradually.
Totally four loading-unloading cycles were performed in a
row without resetting zero. Fig. 9 shows the data recorded
during the whole characterization protocol. The slope of the
plot represents the sensitivity in each range. It can be seen
from the plot that the developed force sensor has a sensitivity
of 485 mV·N−1 within 0 to 11.5 N, and a sensitivity of
88.7 mV · N−1 within 11.5 N to 110 N, which confirms
its’ dual-range performance. Fig. 9 also demonstrates that
the sensor is linear and provides high repeatability and low
hysteresis.
For dynamic characterization, the performance was exam-
ined by the frequency response method. We used an impulse
signal to excite the movable stage, the resulting vibration
was recorded by the capacitive sensor. The obtained signal
was transmitted to a terminal equipment for Fourier analysis.
Since the bandwidth of the force sensor is delimited by
the first natural frequency which occurs in the first motion
range, the impulse excitation was applied with a relatively
low magnitude. Fig. 10 depicts the frequency response in the
working direction. Although the two ranges of the force sensor
should correspond to two different resonant frequencies, the
bandwidth of the force sensor is delimited by its first resonant
mode. It is obvious that the resonant frequency in the second
range is much higher than that in the first range, so only one
resonant peak is presented here. We believe it is sufficient
to determine the sensor’s bandwidth. As one can see, the
first natural frequency is around 290 Hz. This value is 17%
lower than the analytical model, but is very close to the FEA
result. After the characterization, the overall performance of
the developed force sensor are summarized in Table III, with
the theoretical results included for comparison. Furthermore,
in order to show the superiority of the proposed design,
we compare its performance with a commercial dual-range
force sensor developed by Vernier Software & Technology
Co., Ltd. [25]. The comparison results are listed in Table IV.
1121
Fig. 10. Frequency response used to determine the first resonent mode.
TABLE III
OVERALL C HARACTERISTICS OF THE F ORCE S ENSOR
TABLE IV
OVERALL C HARACTERISTICS OF THE F ORCE S ENSOR
It can be seen from the table that the designed force sensor
is better than the commercial one. Besides, it is worth noting
that the commercial dual-range sensor has to manully switch
between its small range and large range when used for different
applications. However, the proposed design can automatically
make this transition, which means the proposed design is more
practical. In the later section, we give a brief introduction to
the nanoimprinter that is currently been developed within our
team.
C. Presentation of the Targeted Nanoimprint Machine
A solid model of the nanoimprint machine where the devel-
oped force sensor will be implemented is shown in Fig. 11.
The imprinter mainly incorporates the following four units:
• Driving unit for z axis. It consists of an AC servo motor,
a precision ball screw and four guiding rails. This unit is
the main source of the imprint force.
• Parallelism error adjustment unit. This unit is built up
by the combination of a decoupled XY compliant stage,
a spherical air bearing and two linear motors in order
to adjust the parallelism error once an uneven force
distribution is detected.
• Imprint force monitoring unit. In this unit, three circum-
ferentially distributed force sensors are arranged behind
1122
Fig. 11. Sketch of the targeted nanoimprinter.
the template holder to record the imprint force and
to provide real-time force feedback during the entire
imprinting process. This unit is of great importance to
the force uniformity on the template which in turn has a
direct impact on the quality of the imprinting result.
• Heating unit. This unit is used to heat the substrate to a
certain temperature in order to provide fluidity.
As mention ealier, the whole imprinting process includes
two phases. When working in the first phase, each force
sensor operates in its small motion range with a relatively high
sensitivity. Once an uneven force distribution is detected, the
signal will be transferred to the imprint force monitoring unit.
Then, the two linear motors will pull or push the compliant
stage that is connect to a peg to drive the spherical air bearing
for tilting movement, thus adjusting the parallelism error. The
non-contact air bearing is used due to its frictionless and high
motion precision capabilities. During the second phase, the
imprint force goes up to several hundreds of Newton, all the
force sensors step into the large motion ranges to monitor
the holding force. The high sensitivity and large measurable
range of the force sensor guarantees that the sensor can
work properly during whole process. At the present time,
the machine is being built within our team. The next step
is to design an adequate control law based on the force
measurement, and to test the control law on the device.
VI. C ONCLUSION AND F UTURE W ORK
The study of nanoimprinter lithography has raised a tough
task to design a novel force sensing device to provide real-time
feedback for both fine tuning the orientation of the imprint
head and monitoring the imprint force during the whole
imprint process. To this end, a light-weight dual-range
force sensor capable of resolving forces with two different
sensitivities and large range has been presented in this paper.
To conquer the conflicting requirement of high sensitivity,
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 15, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015
broad bandwidth and large measurable range, this paper
used a multiobjective particle swarm optimization algorithm
to optimize the geometric parameters of the force sensor.
Thanks to the optimization, the developed sensor achieves
a monolithic and compact structure. A prototype sensor has
been manufactured by electrical discharge machining. Both the
static and dynamic performance of the force sensor have been
tested. The results indicate that the developed sensor is linear,
and shows low stress concentration, high repeatability and low
hysteresis. Additionally, the sensor is versatile and very easy
to adapt to specific applications.
Experimentally determining the impact of the dual-range
force sensor on the performance of nanoimprint lithography
is part of our future work. This work will include control
algorithm designing, parallel error adjusting and imprint test-
ing. Although the testing is beyond the scope of the current
paper, we can comment on the expected impact of the sensor
on the performance of nanoimprint lithography. Since the
whole imprinting process switches from a non-contact environ-
ment to a contact environment, we plan to use the impedance
force tracking control algorithm as the main control scheme.
It is anticipated that the developed dual-range force sensor will
implement the desired parallel error adjustment process and
the imprinting process. We will also consider using statistical
approach to calibrate the whole system’s uncertainty.
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[25] Product Information of A Commercial Dual-Range Force Sensor, Jianbin Zhang is currently a Full Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Vernier Software & Technology, Aug. 2014. [Online]. Available: with Beihang University, Beijing, China. His research interest is focused on
http://www.vernier.com/products/sensors/force-sensors/dfs-bta/ engineering manufacturing and robotics.