Abstract
Fine motion characteristic is very important for precision positioning systems because positioning accuracy and positioning time depend on the characteristic. The fine motion characteristic is greatly influenced by the characteristics of the mechanism. Non-contact mechanisms using pressurized air films or magnetic force have very good fine motion characteristic because they have no friction element and backlash. However the non-contact mechanisms make the positioning systems large and expensive, and have small load capacity. In this paper, three kinds of precision positioning methods which do not require non-contact type mechanisms, (1) utilizing the nonlinear spring characteristic of the mechanism, (2) improving the fine driving characteristics by using fine motion actuator and (3) utilizing dynamics in microworld and micromachining technique, are introduced. These methods have different features. So it is important to choose a suitable method for the application
