Electrostatically driven microgripper

On the dynamics of a micro-gripper subjected to electrostatic and piezoelectric excitations

“…A MEMS-based (Micro Electro Mechanical System-based) micro-gripper provides advantages in terms of compact size and low cost and hence plays an important role in micro assembly and micro manipulation field for manipulating micro mechanical elements, bio-logical cells, etc. Depending on the type of actuation mechanism, micro-grippers can be classified into six types [1].Various prototype of micro-grippers of different actuation methods are developed by numerous researchers, including electro-thermal actuators [2,3,4,5,6,7,8], electrostatic actuators [9,10,11,12,13,14], piezoelectric actuators [15,16], electromagnetic actuators [17], shape memory alloy actuators [18,19,20], and micro-pneumatic actuators [21]. To sense and measure the tip deflection of the micro-grippers, divers sensors have been presented by authors in the literature including optical sensors [22,23,24], piezoresistive force sensors [25,26,27,28,29,30], and capacitive force sensors [31,32].…”

“…To sense and measure the tip deflection of the micro-grippers, divers sensors have been presented by authors in the literature including optical sensors [22,23,24], piezoresistive force sensors [25,26,27,28,29,30], and capacitive force sensors [31,32]. Electrostatic actuation has been widely applied in MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) devices [33,34,35] as well as micro-grippers [9][10][11][12][13][14] . In electrostatic actuators the distance between the micro beam and stationary plate is limited so that applying surplus voltage results in the collapse of the micro beam to the substrate.…”

Design, implementation and testing of electrostatic SOI MUMPs based microgripper

“…In electrostatically actuated microgripper the only problem is its high operating DC voltage as in (Volland et al 2002) propose such design based on electrostatic actuation that is operated at 80 V to provide displacement of 20 lm. Another design which operates at 85 V producing displacement of 25 lm at tips is presented in (Tao Chen et al 2010).…”

Design optimisation and fabrication of SU-8 based electro-thermal micro-grippers

“…Electrostatic micro-grippers, which operate due to electrostatic attraction forces, cannot be used in a biological medium which has electrolytic properties [7,8]. Electrostatic micro-grippers operate at a high voltage, for example 90 V, high voltages may damage biological cells [9]. Thermoelectric micro-grippers such as bimorph actuators, developed by Guckel [10] operate due to joule heating.…”