Tactile microgripper for automated handling of microparts

Development of a novel flexure-based microgripper for high precision micro-object manipulation

“…Therefore, the demand to accomplish fully integrated multifunctional MEMS devices has stimulated extensive researches on micromanipulation methodologies and devices to ultimately achieve fully automated microassembly procedure. Most of the microsystem researchers in academia have been focusing on three critical assembly components that determine the accomplishment of microassembly procedure namely the development of high precision grasping devices, nano-measurement technologies and ultra precision stage positioning [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The integration of these components will pave boundless opportunity for the establishment of wide range of microdevices that incorporate sensor, actuator and control architectures.…”

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

“…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]. 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] .…”

Multiscale Robotics Framework for MEMS Assembly

“…al. [1], thermally actuated microgrippers using a variety of materials [4,5], of the use of adhesive forces to manipulate microparts [2,3]. In addition to serial microassembly methods, others have pursued parallel manipulation techniques at small scales, for instance Bohringer et al [6] who introduced programmable force fields for manipulation with arrays of microactuators.…”