Sub-micron palletizing system for micro- and ultraprecision machining

Clamping and referencing of work pieces is a main task in ultraprecision machining which strongly influences the manufacturing quality in terms of form accuracy. Especially, when manufacturing a multiple number of similar work pieces, the clamping accuracy of each work piece is crucial in order to keep the sub-micron accuracy level, which is achievable with state of the art ultraprecision machine tools, throughout the batch. Therefore, automated solutions are developed within the European Integrated Project (IP) Production4 micro meter to realize highly reproducible production chains. Within this project, System 3R has developed the MACRO-Nano chuck - a passive work piece clamping system with a system sub-micron accuracy. At Fraunhofer IPT, this sub-micron clamping device has been tested in an ultraprecision machining environment in order to confirm the systems accuracy by analysing the geometrical deviations of a sample geometry which has been machined with the use of the MACRO-Nano chuck. The design of the chuck as well as the machining and characterization of the samples are described in this paper.