A new pneumatic pad controlled by means of an integrated proportional valve

Aerostatic air bearings have the advantages of supporting loads with no friction and wear and for this feature they are extensively adopted in metrology as they allow very precise motion. The possibility of integrating an active component increases the performance of the aerostatic pads, which can be designed in order to obtain an infinite stiffness or to improve stability. In [1, 2] the authors developed a prototype of active pad controlled by means of digital valves and Arduino board. A shortcoming of this prototype was a small amplitude oscillation of the pad supply pressure due to the opening and closing of the digital valve. In order to overcome this problem a new prototype was designed making use of a proportional valve. This paper shows the first experimental tests together with the numerical model.