The design and control of a three-dimensional piezoceramic tube scanner with an inertial slider

Inertial sliders are often used to produce coarse relative positioning for scanning probe microscopes. This article describes the design, dynamic analysis, and control of a compact four-segment piezoceramic tube scanner employing an inertial slider. Velocity feedback control, implemented using two-segment piezoelectric sensing, was used to suppress undesired vibrations in the tube, and to improve scanner step uniformity. The control analysis was based on an empirical open-loop identification of the as-built tube behavior, which was also measured using the two-segment sensing technique. A reset integrator friction simulation predicted the overall system performance, and showed good agreement with experimental results.