Hybrid Hexapod from ALIO gives precision repeatability

By Bhalchandra Chorghade, Editor, CNCTimes.com

ALIO’s patented next generation Hybrid Hexapod® takes a different approach to traditional 6 Degree of Freedom (6-DOF) positioning devices, and exhibits much higher performance at extremely competitive prices. Rather than 6 independent legs (and 12 connection joints) the Hybrid Hexapod® combines a precision XY monolithic stage, tripod, and continuous rotation theta-Z axis to provide superior overall performance. This renders traditional hexapod kinematics obsolete, with orders-of-magnitude improvements in precision, path performance, speed, stiffness and a larger work envelope with virtually unlimited XY travel, and fully programmable tool center point locations.

The Hybrid Hexapod® has less than 100 nm 3-Dimensional 6 axis Point Precision® repeatability, making it an essential technology for mission critical applications in the laser processing, optical inspection, photonics, semiconductor, metrology, and medical device sectors, and indeed all micro-machining projects.

Traditional hexapods cannot achieve sub-micron accuracy because they require the accurate coordination of the movement of all six axes to accomplish a motion profile, even if the requirement is only for a simple single-axis motion. In addition, despite the fact that the general perception is that hexapods exhibit good stiffness compared to serial stacked multi-axis systems, this is really only in the vertical “z” axis, with weaknesses in the “xy” plane.

The 60-degree tip/tilt travel of the AngularesTM Hybrid Hexapod® is by far the most angular travel range available from any 6-Degree-Of-Freedom (6-DOF) positioner on the market and offers the same unmatched positioning performance found in any of ALIO’s full-line of Hybrid Hexapod systems. It is perfectly suited for applications including aspheric and freeform optical metrology, silicon photonics packaging and probing, laser micro processing (non-planar substrates and taper control), wafer metrology, camera module alignment and assembly, sensor/image stabilization testing, and optical element and fiber alignment.

The AngularesTM features precision crossed roller bearing guides, optical incremental or absolute encoder feedback on all axes, linear motor and/or servo ball screw drives, unlimited programmable tool center point locations and coordinate offsets, and zero backlash on all axes. The design makes the AngularesTM capable of unlimited XY travel, Z travel for 62 mm which can be increased to 208 mm using other tripod models, tip/tilt travel of 60 degrees (+/- 30 degrees) with continuous 360 degree Theta-Z, XYZ bidirectional repeatability of less than +/- 0.6 arc-seconds, velocity up to 100 mm/second XY and Z, and less than 10 nanometers linear and 0.1 arc-seconds angular minimum incremental motion.

https://alioindustries.com/hybrid-hexapod/

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