Motion stages are widely used for precision positioning in manufacturing and metrology applications. However, they suffer from nonlinear premotion (i.e. static) friction, which adversely affects their speed and motion precision. In this article, a friction isolator is used as a simple and robust solution to mitigate the undesirable effects of premotion friction in precision motion stages. For the first time, a theoretical study is carried out to understand the dynamic phenomena associated with using a friction isolator on a motion stage. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation are conducted to examine the dynamical effects of friction isolator on a proportional-integral-derivative-controlled motion stage under LuGre friction dynamics. The influence of friction isolator on the response and stability of the system is examined through theoretical and numerical analyses. Parametric analysis is also carried out to study the effects of friction isolator and friction parameters on the eigenvalue and stability characteristics. The numerical results validate the theoretical findings and demonstrate several other interesting nonlinear phenomena associated with the introduction of friction isolator. This motivates deeper nonlinear dynamical analyses of friction isolator for precision motion control.
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