Micromanipulation robot for automatic fiber alignment

Abstract

Optical fiber alignment devices are highly necessary in optical communications. In this paper, we developed a micromanipulation robot for automatically performing optical fiber alignment task. The system consists of a precision parallel robot with 6 D.O.Fs, a nano positioning stage with 5 D.O.Fs, two microscopes, two CCD cameras, an optical power meter and a fusion device. Directed by the micro-vision system, the precision parallel robot can realize fiber alignment with 0.5 /spl mu/m resolution and 2 /spl mu/m repetitive accuracy. The nano positioning stage is actuated by piezoelectric and 10 nm resolution can be gained. Under the help of optical power meter and through optimal searching method, the fiber can be positioned precisely. With this system, a single mode optical fiber alignment task has been finished automatically. The average splice loss is about 0.016dB. The system can also realize the alignment of fiber and optical devices for its multi DOFs. It will play a key role in the field of optical engineering.