Study and Design of Micro Gripper Driven by Electrothermal V - Shaped Actuator

Abstract

This paper presents a design, calculation, simulation and fabrication of micro gripper driven by the electrothermal V-shaped actuator. The working principle of the V-shaped actuator bases on the thermal expansion of a thin beam when applying a voltage. The advantages of this design are large displacement amplification factor, large driving force, low voltage, simple configuration and control. The maximum displacement of each jaw can be up to 40µm at the calculated voltage of 17.35V and low operating frequency. Simulating displacement of the micro gripper in ANSYS multiphysics shows an average voltage deviation of 5.98% in comparison with calculation at the same displacement. The micro gripper has been fabricated successfully by using MEMS technology and SOI wafer. Measured result confirmed positive features of the system such as large displacement and low driving voltage (i.e. low power consumption). The next step, it can be integrated in micro-robot or in micro assembling systems to clamp and lift the micro/nano samples.