| Abstract: | This paper reports a new pneumatic positioning device coupled with a piezoelectric self‐moving mechanism to overcome the main disadvantages of the inherent poor positioning accuracy obtained by traditional pneumatic cylinder. The new driving mechanism is to mount a piezoelectric Impact Drive Mechanism (IDM) to the controlled sliding table driven by the pneumatic cylinder. Based on the configuration, the first step of positioning process is to actuate the sliding table with rough position accuracy but with the benefits of high‐speed and large‐range due to the pneumatic cylinder. The second step is to drive the sliding table with high position accuracy by utilizing the impact force of IDM. The experimental results show that the controlled sliding table is successfully positioned in 0.236 s with rough accuracy of 10 μm and with the stroke of 100 mm by utilizing the pneumatic cylinder, and the final positioning accuracy of 10 nm with respect to the terminated position of the first‐stage control is obtained in 1.479 s due to the actuations of IDM. It is shown that the pneumatic positioning device coupled with IDM has attractive practical applications in the field of precision industry. |
