ADAPTIVE CUTTING FORCE CONTROL FOR PROCESS STABILITY OF MICRO ULTRASONIC MACHINING By

The growing demand for miniaturized products motivates the advancement in micromanufacturing processes research and development. Micro Ultrasonic Machining (Micro USM) is a downscaled version of a macro USM process that is developed to fabricate complex features in chemically inert, nonconductive, hard, brittle materials such as quartz, glass, and ceramics. These materials have many applications in various fields such as optics, electronics, MEMS, and biotechnology. The micro USM process stability is hard to accomplish, because it is highly influenced by the accuracy of the machining system and the variation of the process control parameters. The repeatability of micr