On the optimum synthesis of a microconveyor platform for micropart translocation using differential evolution

Abstract

Micromanipulation is an active research topic in the development of MEMS devices. At the microscale the microforces encountered are highly nonlinear and behave differently than their macroscale equivalent ones. Thus, if an inverse problem were to be posed in the MEMS world, the problem could be investigated and the parameters identified using non-traditional evolutionary based approaches. In this manuscript, the notion of a microconveyor platform along with the highly nonlinear microscale forces of the interaction between the microconveyor and a micropart is introduced. The proposed microconveyor platform for micromanipulation based on the active surface concept is investigated for the controlled translocation of a micropart to a predefined destination in minimum time and within a predefined distance tolerance. The current work poses the microconveyor concept as an inverse problem that aims to identify the optimum values of system control parameters for controlled micropart motion. Differential evolution is employed for solving this inverse problem because of the discontinuity and nonlinearity of the system dynamics which do not render conventional direct line search techniques suitable for control parameter estimation. The design variables based on physical conditions, the boundary constraints on design variables along with other constraints and the objective function are introduced. The convergence of the proposed objective function, design variables and evaluation of system output at the identified optimized set of control parameters are discussed. The optimization results reinforce the feasibility of the concept of active surface based microconveyor comprising of a series of actuators for controlled micropart translocation.