Mechatronics actively damped stage - Electronics

High precision instrumentation is widely used to perform scientific experiments at Diamond, where a small x-ray beam needs to be focused on very small samples, to be able to resolve the size of viruses, proteins and materials at the micro- and nanoscale. 

This instrumentation requires a very high degree of stability to minimize the influence of vibration on the experimental results, and sometimes the external disturbances exceed the required performance – for this reason, active stabilisation is often required with a so-called “mechatronics” approach, that combines the understanding of mechanical, electronics and control system to reach an optimal solution. 

You will be part of a team simulating, designing, building and testing an actively damped high stiffness support for scientific applications at Diamond. You will learn how to model a mechanical system and a control system, design a prototype for the hardware, selecting the appropriate sensors and electronics to deliver the desired system performance, and you will get to test and evaluate the system’s proof of concept.  

You will also develop skills around test planning and execution around a tight development schedule, such as Diamond’s run / shutdown cycle, and get to present your progress and findings to engineers and scientists from a variety of different backgrounds.