Mesoscale electromechanical systems find applications in fields such as medical instrumentation, soft robotics, microscopy, flexible electronics and imagining. This paper implements the printed circuit MEMS (PC-MEMS) process [1]for the fabrication of a 'pop-up' flexure-based mesoscale systemthat exploits the simplicity of 2-D manufacturing techniques such assheet-metal operations and laser cutting to realize a 3-D mechanism. The fabrication of a laminated Delta robot with prismatic actuation is presented to exemplify this process. A working device with actuation and functional components such as linear guides, stepper motors and limit switches is designed and fully realized. Because the mechanism is popped out of the plane to achieve its3D shape, we present a stiffness analysis to arrive at the out-of-plane (or 'pop-out') angles that the planar system must accommodate so that constraints/limits on actuator torque/force can be can satisfied while producing an operational system. The simplicity of the processes makes it a candidate for the use in the emerging open-source hardware technologies forfabricating low-cost, complex, electromechanical systems.
Open control architectures have many advantages including increased computational resources and flexibility of reconfiguration of new manufacturing units. This paper proposes an open architecture for the control of CNC systems based on open source electronics. The software architecture in this paper is a component-based approach where each component has an independent finite state machine (FSM) model. The hardware architecture is a multiprocessor distributed controller, with different levels of processing, and adaptable for different hardware specifications. A discussion of the basic control algorithms, with examples of implementation to the open source platform Arduino, is presented as part of the methodology. Other results in this paper include the preliminary test of the control to a two-axis CNC stage and a mathematical model of the control-loop in Simulink. The architecture in this paper has the potential of transforming CNC in open source electronics from device-oriented systems to systems where users can design their controls for special purpose machines.
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