Micro-patterning technique using a rotating cutting tool controlled by an electromagnetic actuator

•A micro-patterning or surface texturing technique on the fixed work surface.•Proposed spindle consists of a rotating tool and an electromagnetic actuator.•An electromagnetic force is acting on the housing instead of the shaft.•A cutting force and tool path in micro-milling are modeled while machining.•A machined and simulated surface is compared as the run-out is compensated.

This work describes a micro-patterning or surface texturing technique on the fixed work surface using a proposed new spindle system with a rotating cutting tool controlled in real time. The proposed spindle system creates micro-sized patterns using rotating tools such as a micro-milling tool and a micro-grinding wheel. The shaft of the spindle is suspended by air bearings, and an electromagnetic actuator controls the radial motion of the spindle housing instead of the shaft. This generates a micro-pattern array on the electro-less Ni-coated workpiece in the micro-milling process. A PID controller is adopted to make the system stable, and adaptive feedforward cancellation is used to effectively compensate for the run-out of the spindle system during machining. The machining results show that this compensation improves the pattern accuracy. It is expected that micro-patterning using the proposed spindle system can be applied over a large surface area.