Abstract
This article presents the conceptual design of a novel compliant microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based gripper with integrated electrothermal actuator and electrothermal force sensor. By this design solution, the device possesses some unique characteristics including a small and compact footprint size, and a large driving force by the thermal actuator. Owing to the use of a compliant rotational bearing, a large gripping range is obtained. The sensing arm has a capability of detecting the force transmitted from the left arm so as to prevent the damage of the grasped object. Analytical models are developed to evaluate the statics and dynamics performance of the gripper. Simulation results show that the thermal actuator produces sufficient gripping force to execute the gripping operation with a range of 80 µm under a low input voltage of 6 V. Moreover, the results of the established theoretical models match well with the finite element analysis (FEA) simulation results, which verifies the feasibility of the proposed gripper design.
Highlights
MEMS-based microgrippers have been employed in some application areas, such as micromanipulation, microassembly[1] and material characterization.[2]
Taking the simulation results as a benchmark, it is seen that the maximum errors between the analytical model and simulation results for the stiffnesses of the actuating and sensing arms are below 10%
The discrepancies between the modeling results and simulation results may come from the established analysis models, which only consider bending deformations, while the simulation study takes into account every kind of deformation
Summary
MEMS-based microgrippers have been employed in some application areas, such as micromanipulation, microassembly[1] and material characterization.[2]. A compliant mechanism (a mechanism which is compliant) is employed to design the gripper structure in this work, as it has inherent merits: no friction, no clearance, no wear, lubrication free and ease ofmanufacture.[4] In the meantime, the compliant mechanism transfers the displacement following the property of the used material elastic deformations.[5] the compliant mechanism can realize the smooth and repeatable motion of the microgripper. For this reason, the compliant structure has been popularly applied in MEMS devices, especially for the applications which need ultra-high precision motion.[6] the gripper structure is designed using a compliant mechanism in this work
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