Abstract: Magnetically levitated precision motion systems have excellent performance in positioning accuracy, speed, load capacity, and vacuum compatibility, and has tremendous potential to enable future manufacturing equipment and instruments with enhanced accuracy, speed, and sustainability.

In this presentation, I will discuss our efforts on the design, modeling, optimization, and experimental tests for various magnetically levitated precision positioning systems for emerging applications, including magnetically levitated linear stage for in-vacuum photomask transportation in photolithography machines, a lightweight wafer stage for high-throughput IC manufacturing, and two different designs for magnetically suspended sample stages aiming at long-stroke sample positioning for x-ray microscopes. A hardware and controller co-design approach, i.e. a synergistic design method for mechatronic systems with the system’s hardware design and control policy optimized in one unified process, is utilized to remove design conservatisms. I will also briefly cover other research projects in my laboratory, including high-speed flywheel energy storage systems, automated assembly of monolayer-material-based devices for flexible electronics, and high-torque high-transparency actuators for robotic manipulation.