DPPM Cases
Design Principles for Precision Mechatronics. A collection of applications categorized in themes known from construction principles.
How to design mechanical hardware as part of a modern precision mechatronic system.
The precision mechatronics community has a long history of continuous updates on DDP (“Des Duivels Prentenboek”) content by Wim van der Hoek and his ‘heritage keepers’. It is considered relevant to prolong this process with new examples from the field of precision mechatronics, incl. opto-mechanics, electro-mechanics and material science.
In the coming year(s), we write a book and a website containing examples of precision mechatronics elements. DSPE members can contribute by writing clear examples to be freely used. Company and designer can be mentioned. Examples should no be complete systems.
Overview of the design principles for accuracy and repeatability, as of ~1970, and their evolution, as of ~2000 (in green) and ~2010 (in red).
| Design principle | Implementation |
| Kinematic design | ▶ Exact constraints ▶ Mechanical decoupling via flexures and elastic hinges |
| Design for stiffness | ▶ Structural loops with high static stiffness and favourable dynamic stiffness |
| Lightweight design | ▶ Design for low mass and high eigenfrequencies |
| Design for damping | ▶ Energy dissipation that slows down motion without introducing position uncertainty |
| Design for symmetry | ▶ Symmetry in geometry and external loads ▶ Over-actuation |
| Design for low friction and hysteresis | ▶ Minimisation of friction and virtual play in high-precision structures, connections and guideways |
| Design for low sensitivity | ▶ Thermal centre and thermal (compensation) loops with high stability ▶ Low-expansion materials ▶ Isolation of disturbances, e.g. via isolated metrology loop ▶ Offset minimisation, e.g. Abbe principle and Bryan principle, and drive-offset minimisation relative to the centre of mass ▶ High-bandwidth feedback control |
| Design for stability | ▶ Minimisation of heat dissipation and microslip in interfaces ▶ Minimisation of material creep and drift |
| Design for load compensation | ▶ Weight compensation, reaction force compensation and (parasitic) stiffness compensation ▶ Position-dependency compensation |
| Design for minimal complexity | ▶ Balancing and hence minimisation of complexity and related cost via a multidisciplinary system approach |
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