Precision mechatronics: adjustment, stage control, metrology
Why optical systems take long to adjust and positioning stages lose speed or accuracy, and how models and path planning shorten both.
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Complex optical systems are adjusted by hand and by experience
What happens. A system with many mirrors, lenses and mounts has many adjustment screws that influence each other. A skilled technician turns them one by one and measures, until the image is good. When that person is away, adjustment takes days.
What it costs. Long assembly time, scrap of expensive components that cannot be brought into tolerance, and a dependence on a few experienced people.
Why the usual fix fails. Writing the sequence down helps only for the units that behave like the last one. A fixed procedure for every adjustment ignores that each assembly differs slightly.
How a fixed-price remote diagnosis checks it. From adjustment records, measured wavefront or image data and the optical design, I check whether a model could suggest the next adjustment steps. The fixed-price remote diagnosis tells you if model-based calibration is realistic for your system and what data it needs.
Background: Replacing hand-tuned parameter tables by a model
Positioning stages: dynamics models and paths limit speed and accuracy
What happens. A stage moves a sample or a tool to a point and holds it still within a tiny tolerance. The faster it moves, the more it rings. Operators slow down the motion to wait for it to settle.
What it costs. Throughput lost to settling times, and accuracy lost where the stage resonates. Machine builders compensate with slow paths and extra damping hardware.
Why the usual fix fails. Tuning the standard controller by hand gives a good response for one load and one path. Notch filters work for one resonance, not for a stage whose dynamics change with position.
How a fixed-price remote diagnosis checks it. From step responses, frequency measurements and motion logs, I identify the stage dynamics and check how much faster a planned path and a model-based controller could be. The fixed-price remote diagnosis tells you what gain is realistic.
Background: Optimal paths and setpoint plans
Metrology and semiconductor motion needs tighter control at higher speed
What happens. Motion systems in metrology and semiconductor tools carry wafers and optics that must be placed with extreme accuracy, again and again, at ever higher speed. Reaction forces shake the frame and disturb the next move.
What it costs. Each tighter tolerance and each additional wafer per hour has to come from the control. The cost is lost throughput and, when disturbances are not understood, measurements that cannot be trusted.
Why the usual fix fails. Decoupling the axes by hand and adding stiffness hits a limit: more mass makes the machine slower. A standard controller treats each axis alone and cannot use what is known about the coupling.
How a fixed-price remote diagnosis checks it. From axis logs, frame accelerations and the machine layout, I check how much of the disturbance is predictable and how a model-based controller could use that. The fixed-price remote diagnosis tells you whether the gain justifies a new control design.
Background: Precision control for robots and machine tools
More problems that concern this industry
These problems are described on the page of the industry where they matter most:
- Positioning stages settle too slowly for the throughput target (Semiconductor equipment makers)
- Fast inspection mechatronics shakes and loses accuracy (Semiconductor equipment makers)
- Teams cannot find control engineers for fast positioning axes (Electronics manufacturers)
- Drive concepts and motor sizing for lab-automation robots rest on rules of thumb (Robot maker)
Check it on your plant first: a fixed-price remote diagnosis
EUR 4,500 net · 5 working days · remote · availability on request · freelance or through temporary agency work
Within a fixed scope and at a fixed price, I review your data, control structure and measurements remotely and tell you whether the problem on this page is behind your symptoms and what fixing it would take. You get a short summary for decision-makers and a technical report for your engineers.