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The paper presents a new parallel micromanipulator that is composed of three piezohydraulic actuation systems. The basic elements of the actuation system are a piezoelectric actuator, a bellows and hydraulic oil. The use of the flexible bellows results in a new type of parallel structure, where the joints are integrated into actuator links. The joint-free tripod-like micromanipulator is controlled using a real-time control software that is based on a multi-level architecture. Control is organised in four levels for nonlinearity compensation, position feedback control, supervision and tackling of automatic operations. The micromanipulator presented provides an exceptional combination of submicrometer resolution, large work space, miniature size and advanced control.
Kallio et al. (Wed,) studied this question.