Sensors and Actuators A 147 (2008) 254262

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sna

Enhanced adaptive motion tracking control of piezo-actuated exure-based

four-bar mechanisms for micro/nano manipulation
Hwee Choo Liaw , Bijan Shirinzadeh
Robotics and Mechatronics Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Wellington Road, Vic. 3800, Australia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 21 September 2007
Received in revised form 30 January 2008
Accepted 21 March 2008
Available online 29 March 2008
Keywords:
Flexure-based mechanism
Piezoelectric actuator
Micro/nano manipulation
Adaptive control
Non-linearities
Parametric uncertainties

a b s t r a c t
This paper establishes and investigates an enhanced adaptive motion tracking control methodology for
piezo-actuated exure-based four-bar micro/nano manipulation mechanisms. This control methodology
is proposed for tracking desired motion trajectories in the presence of unknown or uncertain system
parameters, non-linearities including the hysteresis effect, and external disturbances in the motion systems. In this paper, the equations for the modelling of a exure-hinged four-bar micro/nano mechanism
are established. These include the angular stiffness, static linear stiffness, equation of motion, and lowest
structural resonance of the mechanism. In addition, a lumped parameter dynamic model that combines
the piezoelectric actuator and the micro/nano mechanism is established for the formulation of the proposed control methodology. The stability of the control approach is analysed, and the convergence of
the position and velocity tracking errors to zero is proven theoretically. A precise tracking performance
in following a desired motion trajectory is also demonstrated in the experimental study. An important
advantage of this control methodology is that the approach requires only a knowledge of the estimated
lumped system parameters in the physical realisation. This proposed motion tracking control methodology is very attractive for the implementation of high performance exure-based micro/nano manipulation
control applications.
2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Increasingly, micro/nano manipulation mechanisms and systems are utilised in many advanced areas. They are employed
for accomplishing high-precision motion tasks particularly in
the biomedical engineering and micro-surgery applications [14].
The vast majority of these micro/nano manipulation mechanisms are based on exure-based mechanisms and generally
driven by piezoelectric actuators [5]. The piezo-actuated exurebased mechanisms offer unlimited motion resolution. They also
possess several advantages over the conventional mechanical systems, which are generally based on sliding or revolute lower
pairs. These advantages include negligible friction, zero backlash, noiselessness, and easy maintenance. In recent years, there
have been progress in the development of exure-based mechanisms [68]. For optimal mechanical performance, related studies
of the micro/nano mechanisms have been conducted [912].
Furthermore, attention has also been focused on the advancement of piezoelectric actuators [5,13] to enhance their important

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 9905 1008; fax: +61 3 9905 1825.
E-mail addresses: hwee-choo.liaw@eng.monash.edu.au (H.C. Liaw),
bijan.shirinzadeh@eng.monash.edu.au (B. Shirinzadeh).
0924-4247/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.sna.2008.03.020

role in providing the actuation for the micro/nano mechanisms.

In the studies of the exure-based manipulation mechanisms
and systems, the main emphases have been generally conned to
the mechanical design, kinematic modelling, and stiffness analysis
[712,1418]. However, little effort has been made to demonstrate
an effective motion tracking control strategy for the mechanisms.
In addition to the effort focusing on the realisation and understanding of the exure-based mechanisms, there are other obstacles to
the establishment of an effective control methodology for such
mechanisms. One of the well-known issues is the presence of
non-linearity in the piezoelectric actuators driving such mechanisms. This nonlinear effect prevents the piezoelectric actuators
from providing the desired high-precision motion resolution and
accuracy.
To overcome the drawback due to the nonlinear behaviour in
piezoelectric actuators, studies have been conducted to model
and compensate for the hysteresis effect. The examples of modelling techniques for the piezoelectric actuators include a nonlinear
dynamic model with hysteresis [19], a voltage-input electromechanical model [20], a charge steering model [21], a model of
physical hysteresis [22], a method for describing the nonlinear
hysteresis [23], and a neural network hysteresis model [24,25].
Other approaches to the modelling such actuators have been based

H.C. Liaw, B. Shirinzadeh / Sensors and Actuators A 147 (2008) 254262

on the established mathematical formulations to approximate the

input/output behaviour due to hysteresis. The examples include
the Maxwell slip model [20], Duhem model [26,27], and Preisach
model [2830]. The Preisach model has become the most popular approach and many studies of the hysteresis modelling [3135]
have been based on this approach. However, in general, the nonlinear hysteresis effect is very complex. It is difcult to obtain an
accurate model, and the model parameters are generally difcult
to quantify in practice.
Appropriate closed-loop motion control methodologies, on the
other hand, have been proposed to achieve the desired positioning
accuracy for the piezoelectric actuators. Recent examples include
a combination of a feed-forward model in a feedback control with
an input shaper [36], an adaptive back-stepping approach [37], a
tracking control of a piezo-ceramic actuator with a feed-forward
hysteresis compensation [38,39], and an observer-based control
[40,41]. However, in most of these studies, a complex hysteresis
model has been adopted to compensate for the nonlinear hysteresis effect, and furthermore, the research has been restricted to the
piezoelectric actuators without the inclusion of the exure-based
mechanism. In order to realise an effective motion control strategy
for the exure-based mechanisms, additional knowledge must be
acquired. This includes a thorough examination of the stiffness and
structural resonance of the mechanisms, and an in-depth understanding of the combined dynamics of the piezoelectric actuators
and the mechanical structures.
In this paper, an enhanced adaptive motion tracking control
methodology is presented for a exure-based mechanism, particularly for the exure-hinged micro/nano manipulator. A unique
approach is adopted as the proposed control methodology is formulated without using any form of feed-forward compensation. This
research work is motivated by our previous efforts in the control
of the piezoelectric actuators [4244]. In this research, a fundamentally important mechanism, a four-bar link, is employed as
many of the complex manipulators can be constructed from the
combination of such four-bar links [45]. The control objective is
to track a specied motion trajectory in the proposed closed-loop
system.
The proposed control methodology is employed to accommodate the unknown or uncertain system parameters, non-linearities
including the hysteresis effect, and external disturbances in the
exure-based micro/nano manipulation mechanism. The contributions of this paper are briey described as follows. Based on a
well-dened exure-hinged four-bar structure, the equations for
the modelling of the mechanism are established. These include
the angular stiffness, static linear stiffness, equation of motion,
and lowest structural resonance of the manipulator. For control
purposes, a lumped parameter dynamic model that includes the
piezoelectric actuator and the exure-based manipulator is established. An enhanced adaptive motion tracking control methodology
is also established for the micro/nano manipulation mechanism.
A stability analysis is performed in which the position and velocity tracking errors are theoretically proved to converge to zero
in the tracking of a desired motion trajectory. Furthermore, a
precise motion tracking performance is demonstrated in the experimental study. A distinct advantage is also offered by the control
methodology. In the implementation, only the estimated lumped
system parameters are required. This proposed control methodology is expected to play a signicant role in providing an enabling
technology for the control of advanced micro/nano manipulation
mechanisms and systems.
This paper is organised as follows. The model of a piezo-actuated
exure-based four-bar micro/nano manipulation mechanism is
described in Section 2. The enhanced adaptive motion tracking
control methodology is established in Section 3, and the stability

255

Fig. 1. Piezo-actuated exure-based four-bar micro/nano manipulation mechanism.

analysis of the closed-loop system is investigated in Section 4. The

experimental study is detailed in Section 5, and the results are presented and discussed in Section 6. Finally, conclusions and future
work are drawn in Section 7.
2. Model of a piezo-actuated exure-based four-bar
micro/nano manipulation mechanism
A piezo-actuated exure-based four-bar micro/nano manipulation mechanism under investigation is shown in Fig. 1. This
manipulation mechanism is driven by a piezoelectric actuator, which has been identied as one of the most effective
means for achieving the micro/nano motion tasks. The control of
the piezoelectric actuator through an advanced motion tracking
methodology has been presented in our previous research [43],
and the model of the piezoelectric actuator, as shown in Fig. 2, is
described by
mz x z + bz x z + kz xz + fm = Tem (vin vh ),

(1)

where xz is the actuator displacement, fm is the applied force to the

manipulator, mz , bz , and kz are the mass, damping, and stiffness,
respectively, Tem is the electromechanical transformer ratio, vin is
the applied (input) voltage, and vh is the hysteresis voltage of the
piezoelectric actuator model.
The exure-based micro/nano manipulator, as shown in Fig. 1, is
monolithic and comprising links and exure hinges. It is assumed
that the links are rigid and the exure hinges are compliant in bending about one axis but rigid about the cross axes. The exure hinge

Fig. 2. Model of a piezoelectric actuator.

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H.C. Liaw, B. Shirinzadeh / Sensors and Actuators A 147 (2008) 254262

structural resonance described by (4) is rewritten as


4kz z

wrm =

used is a notch-type hinge and the schematic of such a hinge is

shown in Fig. 3. Usually, the exure hinge is simple in shape and
operation; however, it is difcult to model mathematically. Nevertheless, a set of simplied equations for the exure design was
presented as early as 1965 [46]. For an application of moment z
about the z-axis, as shown in Fig. 3, it will result in an angular
deection z . An angular stiffness kz z can therefore be dened
and approximated by
(2)

where E is the elastic modulus of the exure material, and b, r, t are

the dimensions as shown in Figs. 1 and 3. It must be noted that the
angular stiffness (2) is derived for a right circular exure hinge, i.e.
h = 2 r + t.
With the assumption of perfect hinge rotations and small displacements, an approximated rectilinear motion xm , as shown in
Fig. 1, is provided by the upper moving link A of the manipulator in
the x-axis direction. Lagrangian analysis for a exure-based mechanism [45] is employed to formulate a dynamic model for describing
the motion xm . Using this analytical approach, the equation governing the motion of link A is written as

ma +

Ib + Ic
l32

x m +

4kz z
l32

xm = fm ,

(3)

where ma is the mass of link A, Ib and Ic are the moments of inertia

of links B and C, respectively, and l3 is the parameter as shown in
Fig. 1. The lowest structural resonance wrm of the exure-based
mechanism is deduced from (3) as


wrm =

4kz z

l32 ma + (Ib + Ic )/l32

.

fm
4kz z
=
.
xm
l32

1

(5)

l22 + l2 r + r 2 ,

(7)

xz
l1
= .
xm
l3

(8)

Based on the above relationships, the lumped parameter dynamic

model of the piezo-actuated micro/nano manipulation mechanism
is derived by substituting (3) and (8) into (1) to eliminate fm and xz ,
respectively. The dynamic model can be written as
mlp x m + blp x m + klp xm + vh = vin ,

mlp =
blp
klp

Ib + Ic

mz lzm + ma +
Tem
l32
1
=
bz lzm ,
Tem 

1
4kz z
=
kz lzm +
,
Tem
l2

(9)


,
(10)

where mlp , blp , klp are the lumped system parameters. It must be
noted that in addition to the hysteresis effect vh described by (9),
there are generally external disturbances in a practical dynamical
system. For this reason, the equation of motion given by (9) for the
micro/nano manipulation mechanism is rewritten as
mlp x m + blp x m + klp xm + vh + vdc + vdn = vin ,

(11)

where vdc and vdn are the constant time-invariant and nonlinear
time-varying external disturbances, respectively, encountered in
the motion system. It is understood that these terms vh , vdc , and vdn
are generally bounded, i.e. |vh | vh , |vdc | vdc , and |vdn | vdn ,
where vh , vdc , and vdn are positive constant numbers. With
the given model (11), an advanced control methodology can be
established to effectively control the piezo-actuated micro/nano
manipulation mechanism.
3. Enhanced adaptive motion tracking control
methodology

Based on the results presented in [45], the moment of inertia Ib of

link B is given by
Ib = mb

(4)

Furthermore, the total static linear stiffness kfm xm is obtained by

setting the acceleration of (3) to zero and it is given by
kfm xm 

lzm 

and

z
2Ebt 2


,
1
z
9r 2

2
+ (mb + mc )l22 [(1/3) + (r/l2 ) + (r/l2 ) ]

where mc is the mass of link C.

For the purpose of high-precision motion tracking control, a
lumped parameter dynamic model can be formulated by combining
the piezoelectric actuator model given by (1) and the manipulator motion described by (3). With reference to Fig. 1, for a small
displacement, an approximated linear relationship can be established between the piezoelectric actuator position xz and the link
A displacement xm . The linear relationship lzm is given by

Fig. 3. Schematic of a notch-type exure hinge.

kz z

ma l32

(6)

where mb is the mass of link B and l2 is the parameter as shown

in Fig. 1. The moment of inertia given by (6) can also be applied
to determine the moment of inertia Ic of link C, and the lowest

For the piezo-actuated exure-based four-bar micro/nano

manipulation mechanism described by (11), an enhanced adaptive
control methodology can be formulated for the purpose of tracking a desired motion trajectory xmd (t). Under the proposed control
approach, the physical parameters of the system are assumed to be
unknown or uncertain. Furthermore, there exist bounded nonlinear
effects and external disturbances within the closed-loop system.
Moreover, the desired motion trajectory xmd (t) is assumed to be at
least twice continuously differentiable and both x md (t) and x md (t)
are bounded and uniformly continuous in t [0, ). A combination
of an adaptive technique and a sliding control scheme is utilised to
establish the control methodology such that the closed-loop system
will follow the specied motion trajectory.

H.C. Liaw, B. Shirinzadeh / Sensors and Actuators A 147 (2008) 254262

257

For the purpose of control formulation, the dynamic model

described by (11) is rewritten as
xTm + meq x m + vhd = vin ,

(12)

and
T

xm = [xm , x m , xm , 1] ,

(13)

T
[mlp , blp , klp , vdc ] ,

(14)

mlp

= mlp meq ,

(15)

vhd = vh + vdn ,

(16)

where xm is the vector of actual motion trajectory of the manipulator, is the vector of lumped system parameters, mlp is the
modied lumped mass, meq is the specied equivalent mass, and
vhd is the combined undesirable effects due to the time-varying
non-linearities and external disturbances. The equivalent mass meq
described by (15) is always chosen as a strictly positive scalar, i.e.
meq > 0.
An adaptive technique is proposed and established to overcome
the problem of unknown system parameters. In this approach, a set
of the lumped system parameters is dened as
of estimates
T

= [m
lp , b lp , k lp , v dc ] .

(17)

An adaptive methodology [47] is employed to continuously update

the control system through

(t)
= (0)

xmd ()d,

(18)

Fig. 4. Structure of the proposed enhanced adaptive motion tracking control

methodology.

where vhd is a strictly positive number. In this sliding control

approach, a switching function is specied, which is the same as
the error function  given by (19). The time derivative of the error
or switching function given by (19) is expressed as
p ),
 = e p + s(e

(24)

p ) is derived from (21) and it is given as

where the term s(e
p) =
s(e

ds(ep )
e p =
dep

where (0)
is the initial estimates of , K is a 4 4 constant positive denite diagonal matrix, xmd is the vector of desired motion
T
trajectory dened as xmd = [xmd , x md , xmd , 1] , and  is the error
function described by
 = e p + s(ep ),

(19)

where ep is the position tracking error dened as ep (t) = xm (t)

xmd (t), is a strictly positive scalar, and s(ep ) is a saturation error
function. It must be noted that this saturation error function is
specied such that the stability of the proposed closed-loop system
can be guaranteed. A positive denite function can be introduced
to relate the saturation error function, and furthermore, the time
derivative of the saturation error function can be determined. With
this approach, the stability analysis of the proposed control system
can be conducted, and the convergence of the motion tracking can
be ensured.
The saturation error function s(ep ) is derived from the rst
derivative of a special positive denite function (ep ) [42], which is
given by
(ep ) =

2 + ep 2 ||,

(20)

and the saturation error function is expressed as

s(ep ) =

d(ep )
=
dep

ep
2 + ep 2

(21)

where is an arbitrary constant with its absolute value chosen to

be || > 0. An adaptive signal v in is introduced as

v in = xTmd , .

(22)

2 e p

(2

+ ep

(25)

2 )3

For the piezo-actuated exure-based four-bar micro/nano manipulation mechanism described by (11), an enhanced adaptive motion
tracking control methodology is proposed based on the following
formulation:

vin = kp ep kv e p + v in + meq x eq ks  d
,
(26)
||
and
p ),
x eq = x md s(e

(27)

d vhd + ,

(28)

where kp , kv , and ks are the control gains and chosen to be strictly

positive, and  is a strictly positive scalar. Furthermore, the term
(/||) in (26) is undened mathematically when  = 0. In this
case, it is dened as (/||  0) for  = 0. The structure of the
proposed control methodology is summarised in Fig. 4.
4. Stability analysis
The closed-loop dynamics of the proposed control methodology
must be investigated for system stability. To determine the closedloop dynamics, the control input given by (26), with the adaptive
signal v in in (26) replaced by (22), is substituted into the manipulation mechanism described by (12). The closed-loop dynamics is
expressed as
T
T
p ep +kv e p + meq (xm xeq )+ks +d
xmd
+k
xm


+v = 0.
|| hd

(29)

Multiplying both sides of (29) by the error function  described by

(19), the closed-loop dynamics given by (29) is rewritten as

A sliding control scheme is established to accommodate the timevarying non-linearities and external disturbances in the system. It
must be noted that the combined undesirable effects vhd given by
(16) are bounded and there exists an upper bound vhd such that

where y is a function related to the control gains and is given by

|vhd | = |vh + vdn | vhd ,

+ kp ep + kv e p + ks ).
y = (xTm xTmd

(23)

y + meq (xm x eq ) + d|| + vhd  = 0,

(30)

(31)

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H.C. Liaw, B. Shirinzadeh / Sensors and Actuators A 147 (2008) 254262

Due to the deviation of the estimated parameters from the actual

values, an adaptive error v is obtained as

It is possible that the term (v) described by (35) is related to a

positive denite function u2 given as

v = xTmd ,

u2 =

(32)

,
where  is the vector of parameter errors dened as  =
and are given by (17) and (13), respectively. The adaptive
and
error v described by (32) can be expressed as
= xTe v,
xTm xTmd

(33)
T

where xe = xm xmd = [ep , e p , ep , 0] . The function y described

by (31) is then modied by (33) and (19),
2

y = (xTe +kp ep +kv e p )[e p +s(ep )]+ks [e p + s(ep )] v.

(34)

Expanding the right-hand side of (34) yields

y=

mlp e p e p

+ (blp + kv + ks )e p2

+ (klp + kp )ep e p + ks s (ep )

(35)

1 2
1
m e + (blp + kv + 2ks )(ep ) + (klp + kp )ep 2
2 lp p
2
+mlp s(ep )e p ,

(36)

w = (blp + kv + ks )e p2 + (klp + kp )ep s(ep ) + ks 2 s2 (ep )

p )e p ,
mlp s(e

(37)

where (ep ) is given by (20) and its time derivative is expressed as

(e
p ) = s(ep )e p . The function u1 described by (36) is rewritten as
1
1
[e p + 2s(ep )]mlp [e p + 2s(ep )] + mlp e p2 2 mlp s2 (ep )
4
4
1
(k + kp )ep 2 .
2 lp

(38)

The term s2 (ep ) in (38) can be replaced by using (21), and the function u1 described by (38) becomes

u1 =

1
1
2
m [e p + 2s(ep )] + mlp e p2 +
4 lp
4

klp + kp
2

2 mlp
2 + ep 2

+(blp + kv + 2ks )(ep ).

ep 2
(39)

The function u1 will be positive denite if the control gain kp in (39)

is chosen as
kp >

22 mlp
2

klp .

(40)

p ) in (37) can be replaced by using (21) and

The terms s(ep ) and s(e
(25), respectively, and the function w described by (37) becomes

w =

(k + kp )

lp

2 + ep 2

ep 2 + blp + kv + ks

+ks 2 s2 (ep ).

mlp 2
(2

+ ep

2 )3

e p2
(41)

To ensure a positive denite w, the control gains kv and ks in (41)

must be selected in such a way that
kv + ks >

mlp
||

blp .

u 2 = T K .

(44)

Due to the fact that the lumped system parameters given by (14)
are time-invariant, i.e. = 0, the time derivative parameter errors
 are expressed as
= ,

 =

(45)

and

+(blp + kv + 2ks )(ep ) +

Differentiating the function u2 given by (43) with respect to time

yields

u 2 = T K [K 1 xmd ] = [xmd T ]  = v,

v = u 1 + w v,

u1 =

(43)

Using
which include only the time derivative of the estimates .
for (45), and applying the result to (44),
(18) to derive the term
yields

2 2

+ [mlp e p + (blp + kv + 2ks )e p + (klp + kp )ep ]s(ep )

u1 =

1
T K .
2

(42)

(46)

where the scalar v is dened in (32).

Theorem. For the piezo-actuated exure-based four-bar micro/nano
manipulation mechanism described by (11), the enhanced adaptive
motion tracking control law given by (26) assures the convergence of
the motion trajectory tracking with ep (t) 0 and e p (t) 0 as t
under the conditions given by (40) and (42).
Proof. For the manipulation mechanism described by (11) with
the proposed control law given by (26), the functions, u1 , u2 , and w,
described by (39), (43), and (41), respectively, are positive denite
for all non-zero values of ep (t) and e p (t) under the conditions given
by (40) and (42).
A Lyapunov function u3 is proposed for the closed-loop system,
u3 =

1
meq  2 ,
2

(47)

which is continuous and non-negative. Differentiating u3 with

respect to time yields
u 3 = meq  .

(48)

The term  in (48) can be derived from (24) and (27), and it is
expressed as
 = x m x eq .

(49)

The time derivative Lyapunov function u 3 described by (48) is

rewritten as
u 3 = meq (xm x eq ).

(50)

With the closed-loop dynamics described by (30), the function u 3

given by (50) becomes
u 3 = y d|| vhd .

(51)

Replacing the function y in (51) by using (35) and (46), and considering (23) and (28), yields
u 3 = u 1 w u 2 d|| vhd ,
u = w d|| vhd ,
w d|| + vhd ||,
w ||,

(52)

where u = u1 + u2 + u3 is a Lyapunov function. This shows that

u 0 and implies ep (t) 0 and e p (t) 0 as t . Therefore,
both the system stability and tracking convergence are guaranteed
by the control law (26) driving the manipulation mechanism (11)
closely tracking the desired motion trajectory. 

H.C. Liaw, B. Shirinzadeh / Sensors and Actuators A 147 (2008) 254262

Fig. 5. Experimental research facility of the piezo-actuated exure-based four-bar

micro/nano manipulation mechanism.

In the implementation of the control law (26), the discontinuous function (/||) will give rise to control chattering due to
imperfect switching in the computer control. This is undesirable, as
un-modelled high frequency dynamics might be excited. To eliminate this effect, the concept of boundary layer technique [48] is
applied to smooth the control signal. In a small neighbourhood of
the sliding surface ( = 0), the discontinuous function is replaced
by a saturation function, namely the boundary saturation function,
which is dened as

sat



1 :  < ,


:  ,

(53)

+1 :  > ,

where is the boundary layer thickness, and the enhanced adaptive motion tracking control law (26) becomes
vin = kp ep kv e p + v in + meq x eq ks  d sat



(54)

5. Experimental study

259

Physik Instrumente (PI). This piezoelectric actuator is a multi-layer

PZT stacked ceramic translator capable of displacement of up to
45 m corresponding to a range of operating voltage from 0 to 100
V. The PI amplier module has a xed output gain of 10 providing
a voltage range from 20 to +120 V, and the PI capacitive position sensor has a measurement range of up to 50 m. It should be
noted that the laser interferometry-based sensing system [49,50]
was originally intended to be employed for the independent position and velocity measurement and tracking. However, due to the
placement requirement of the retroreector [51], a lack of space
on the actuator, and the external loading, the capacitive sensing
approach was eventually utilised for the position feedback. The
signal processing unit is used to process the position signal and is
connected between the capacitive sensor and control PC. A standard
desktop computer is used as the control PC. It is equipped with a
Pentium 4 3.2 GHz processor running on an operating system capable of hard real-time control. The D/A and A/D boards within the
control PC are of 16-bit resolution, and they are used to generate the
control signal and to acquire the position of the micro/nano manipulation mechanism, respectively. In the experiments, the sampling
frequency of the control loop is set at 2.5 kHz.
For the micro/nano manipulation mechanism under study, as
shown in Fig. 1, it is important to gain a knowledge of the mechanism in order to realise an effective motion control methodology.
With the designed parameters of b = 16 mm, r = 5 mm, and t =
0.5 mm, the angular stiffness kz z given by (2) is calculated as
kz z = 6.44 Nm/rad,

(55)

where the exure material used is the 7000 series Aluminum alloy
with E = 72.0 109 N/m2 . Furthermore, for the designed parameter of l3 = 50 mm, the static linear stiffness kfm xm given by (5) is
obtained as
kfm xm = 0.01 N/m.

(56)

The mass of each link of the micro/nano positioning mechanism can

be estimated from the density of the exure material and the given
parameters including l2 = 40 mm, l4 = 37 mm, and l5 = 110 mm.
The masses are estimated as ma = 83.33 g, mb = 20.07 g, and
mc = 23.60 g from the specied density, 2.81 g/cm3 . The lowest
structural resonance wrm given by (7) is determined as
wrm = 326.64 rad/s 52 Hz.

(57)

In order to investigate the proposed enhanced adaptive motion

tracking control methodology for the piezo-actuated exure-based
four-bar micro/nano manipulation mechanism, an experimental
research facility has been established as shown partially in Fig. 5.
The architecture of the experimental set-up is detailed in the block
diagram as shown in Fig. 6. It consists of a exure-based fourbar mechanism, a piezoelectric actuator, an amplier module, a
capacitive position sensor, a signal processing unit, and a control
PC comprising a digital-to-analogue (D/A) board and an analog-todigital (A/D) board.
The four-bar mechanism is established based on a exurehinged structure, and the piezoelectric actuator is acquired from

The calculated linear stiffness of the mechanism given by (56) is

found to be very low as compared to the specied value of the piezo-

Fig. 6. Block diagram of the experimental architecture.

Fig. 7. Jerk-free desired motion trajectory.

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H.C. Liaw, B. Shirinzadeh / Sensors and Actuators A 147 (2008) 254262

electric actuator. Furthermore, the lowest structural resonance wrm

given by (57) limits the magnitude of the control gains for achieving the desired motion tracking performance in the control system.
Using a rule of thumb, the undamped natural frequency wn of the
control system is conned to wn 1/2wrm and the highest possible
value is calculated as
wn = 25 Hz.

(58)

An approach is therefore required to realise the control methodology for the exure-based manipulation mechanism with the low
stiffness and structural resonance given by (56) and (57), respectively. The purpose is to eliminate the possibility of exciting the
structural resonance of the exure-based mechanism. Under the
proposed control methodology, the closed-loop system is required
to follow a jerk-free desired motion trajectory, which is shown in
Fig. 7 for position, velocity, and acceleration. This desired motion
trajectory is formed by segments of higher-order polynomials with
zero acceleration at the beginning and the end. Furthermore, a lowpass lter is incorporated to smooth the control signal prior to
output as a commanding signal for the amplier module. In the
experiments, a second-order Butterworth lter is employed and
the cutoff frequency is set at the upper limit of the undamped
natural frequency, i.e. 25 (Hz), in order not to affect the control
performance.
In this experimental study, the experiments serve not only to
validate the theoretical formulation of the control methodology
but also to examine the effectiveness of the proposed approach
in a physical system. For the piezo-actuated exure-based fourbar micro/nano manipulation mechanism described by (11), the
enhanced adaptive motion tracking control law (54) is implemented in the control PC. Given the desired motion trajectory, as
shown in Fig. 7, the tracking ability of the control system can be
closely evaluated experimentally in the presence of unknown system parameters, non-linearities, and external disturbances.
In order to study the effect of the proposed control methodology,
an open-loop controller is established for comparison by omitting
the undesirable terms in the system (11). Assuming that the ideal
system is modelled as
lp x m + b lp x m + k lp xm = vin ,
m

(59)

lp , b lp , and k lp are the known parameters, and the openwhere m

loop controller is realised as
lp x md + b lp x md + k lp xmd .
vin = m

(60)

Fig. 8. Control input and switching function.

where the units of K 1 are Vs4 /m3 , Vs2 /m3 , V/m3 , and V/m, respectively. The saturation error function s(ep ) in (19) is implemented as
given by (21). The positive scalar in (19) and the arbitrary constant
in (21) are selected as
= 10 mm/s

and

= 1 m.

(64)

The equivalent mass meq and the boundary layer thickness for
the control law (54) are chosen as
meq = 0.05 Vs2 /m

and

= 30 mm/s.

(65)

The bound vhd and positive scalar  in (28) are specied as

vhd = 30 V

and

 = 1 V.

(66)

For comparison, the open-loop controller (60) is implemented

using the same estimated parameters given by (61) and tracking
the same desired motion trajectory as shown in Fig. 7.
6. Results and discussion
Tracking the desired motion trajectory as shown in Fig. 7,
the piezo-actuated exure-based four-bar manipulation mechanism, as shown in Figs. 1 and 5, was commanded to travel

lp ,
For the purpose of experiments, the estimated parameters m
b lp , and k lp given by (17) are determined in two ways. Firstly, an
open-loop test is conducted to identify the estimated stiffness
lp and b lp ,
k lp , and secondly, the estimated mass and damping, m
respectively, are adjusted during the closed-loop control. Due to
non-linearities and uncertainties in the system, these two latter
parameters are difcult to obtain during the off-line testing, and
they are treated as the tuning gains during the closed-loop imple
mentation. The initial estimates (0)
for (18) are therefore chosen
as
lp = 1, b lp = 1000,
m

k lp = 1.0 106 ,

and

v dc = 0,

(61)

lp , b lp , k lp , and v dc are V s /m, Vs/m, V/m, and

where the units of m
V, respectively. The control gains kp , kv , and ks for the control law
(54) are tuned to the following values:
2

kp = 5000 V/m,

kv = 200 Vs/m,

and ks = 50 Vs/m.

(62)

The diagonal constant matrix K in (18) is selected as

K 1 = 4.0 104 diag{1, 1, 1, 1},

(63)

Fig. 9. Actual position and estimated velocity compared to their desired values.

H.C. Liaw, B. Shirinzadeh / Sensors and Actuators A 147 (2008) 254262

Fig. 10. Position and velocity tracking errors.

261

in a range of 30 m with a maximum velocity and an acceleration reaching 0.13 mm/s and 0.90 mm/s2 , respectively. The
control input vin and switching function  are shown in
Fig. 8. The switching function indicates that its values are well
within the boundary layer thickness specied in (65). This
implies that the closed-loop system tracked the desired motion
trajectory closely with the switching function kept to a minimum.
The resulting position and estimated velocity of the manipulator are shown in Fig. 9, and the corresponding tracking errors are
shown in Fig. 10. Despite unknown system parameters, nonlinear
effects, and external disturbances in the motion system, the proposed control methodology (54) showed a precise tracking ability.
The resulting tracking errors indicate that the enhanced adaptive
motion tracking control law had successfully accommodated the
aforementioned conditions in the closed-loop system. The experimental results, as presented in Fig. 10, show that the position
and velocity tracking errors were conned within 0.11 m and
0.01 mm/s, respectively, during dynamic motion. Furthermore, the
position tracking errors were less than 0.009 m at the steadystate.
For comparison, the experimental results of the open-loop controller (60) are shown in Fig. 11. The open-loop control investigation
shows relatively large positioning errors of about 5.0 m). To
demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control methodology, the results of the actual against desired positions for both
approaches are shown in Fig. 12.
The proposed control methodology is shown to be stable,
repeatable, and capable of tracking the desired motion trajectory
under unknown or uncertain system parameters, non-linearities,
and external disturbances. One of the most important advantages
of the proposed control methodology is that only the estimated
values of the system lumped parameters are required in the implementation.
7. Conclusions and future work

Fig. 11. Comparison of control input and position tracking errors.

An enhanced adaptive motion tracking control methodology has been proposed and investigated for the tracking
of desired motion trajectories in the piezo-actuated exurebased micro/nano manipulation mechanisms. This proposed
control methodology is formulated to accommodate unknown
or uncertain system parameters, non-linearities including the
hysteresis effect, and external disturbances in the motion systems.
The stability of the closed-loop system has been analysed, and
the convergence of the position and velocity tracking errors to zero
is guaranteed by the proposed control methodology. Furthermore,
a high-precision tracking performance has been demonstrated in
the experimental study.
Future work will include the establishment of a multiaxis mechanism capable of carrying a retroreector/mirror.
With such an arrangement, an advanced laser interferometrybased measurement will be utilised to establish the enhanced
stiffness modelling [52] for an accurate closed-loop position and velocity tracking control. Furthermore, the optimum
dynamic balancing [53] of the mechanism will also be investigated.
Acknowledgments

Fig. 12. Comparison of actual against desired positions.

This work is supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC)

Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant, and
an ARC Discovery grant.

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H.C. Liaw, B. Shirinzadeh / Sensors and Actuators A 147 (2008) 254262

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Biographies
Hwee Choo Liaw received BEng degree (First Class Honours) in Electrical Engineering and MEng degree from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in
1992 and 1997, respectively. From 1992 to 1998, he worked as a video product engineer, teaching assistant in NTU, and R&D engineer in DSO National Laboratories,
Singapore. From 1998 to 2005, he was employed by Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology. He worked as a senior research engineer performing research and
development in the areas of high-precision linear motion control, robotic applications, and industrial automation. At the beginning of 2005, he was awarded Monash
Graduate Scholarship and Monash International Postgraduate Research Scholarship
for pursuing a PhD degree in the eld of micro/nano manipulation.
Bijan Shirinzadeh received engineering qualications: BE (mechanical), BE
(aerospace), MSE (Mechanical), and MSE (aerospace) from the University of Michigan, and PhD in mechanical engineering from University of Western Australia (UWA).
He has held various positions in academia and industry. Dr Bijan Shirinzadeh is currently an associate professor, and the director of Robotics & Mechatronics Research
Laboratory (RMRL) which he established in 1994, in the Department of Mechanical
Engineering at Monash University, Australia. His current research interests include
haptics, medical robotics, laser-based measurements and sensory-based control,
micro/nano manipulation systems, systems kinematics and dynamics, and automated manufacturing.