Active Landmark Configuration for Accurate Nano-Positioning

The spatial uncertainties of atom force microscopy (AFM) tip position hinder the AFM based nano-manipulation. Although the landmark based tip localization can be applied to improve the tip position accuracy in the task space, the PZT nonlinearity and system drift are still a challenge to compensation performance when the tip is positioned far from the landmark. Therefore this paper proposes an active landmark configuration. This method first estimates the nearby area called as the landmark domain around the target position, and then actively manipulates the landmark into the landmark domain by using virtual hand to improve the positioning accuracy. Simulation and experiment illustrate the validity of the proposed method.