Analysis of a novel flexure hinge with three degrees of freedom

The flexure hinge is widely used as the mechanism for a high precision posi tioning stage with a micrometer or nanometer resolution. In this article we propose a novel flexure hinge with three degrees of freedom in which the m otions are restricted in the same plane. An analysis model is developed to analyze the flexure hinge. The results obtained are consistent with those o f the finite element method. A characteristic study using the proposed mode l shows that this flexure hinge has a feature of linear load displacement. In addition, the most effective way to change the stiffness of this flexure hinge is to modify the notch's radius. A prototype of this novel flexure h inge has been manufactured and the measured characteristics prove the advan tages of this proposed model. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.