An Experimental Investigation on Positioning Control of a Compliant Micro-Manipulator

In this paper, the angular position of the end-effector of a tendon-driven micro-manipulator has been experimentally controlled. In particular: a) the prototype of a 6 D.O.F.’s in-parallel micro platform has been built; b) the corresponding 3D model has been created and analyzed throughout the finite elements analysis; c) the platform angular positions of the 3D model have been evaluated for an assigned set of the 6 actuating forces; d) a control and data acquisition system, based on real time FPGA platform, has been configured and calibrated; e) the prototype platform has been moved by imposing a series of angular positions as the one detected by the FEA, for the same sets of externally applied loads; f) the predicted and the experimental trajectories have been compared, and their good correspondence has confirmed the feasibility of FEA as provisional model for this kind of micro-systems.