The development of cascadable microdrives with muscle-like operating behaviour

Abstract

The different microdrives used today generate forces and displacements within the microrange. Owing to these action qualities only such fields of application are possible. Cascading several microdrives to one macrodrive allows a multiplication of action quantities. However, increasing action qualities do not automatically result in new fields of application that have not been occupied by macrodrives yet. The potential of cascaded drives compared to macrodrives is demonstrated in detail by means of the structure and the excitation of biological muscular drives. The linkage of cascaded microdrives of differentiated behaviour and the strategies of excitation of biological muscular drives lead to a new generation of drives with new fields of application. These drives are characterized by the power and sensitivity of biological organs of movement such as an elephant's trunk. Based on stationary operating characteristics the electrodynamical principle of energy conversion, which is suitable for miniaturization, is selected, and a cascaded drive is set up with common microtechnology.