Research On Key Technologies Of Electrothermally Actuated Compliant Microgripper

Microgripper used for handling and manipulating microobjects is an important micro actuator. Researching microgripper suitable for manipulating microparts is one of the key links for realizing the industrialization of MEMS. Because of its importance and widely applications, it has been one of the research focuses in micro and nano technology for recent years. In this paper, electrothermally actuated compliant microgripper is studied, and its optimization design, fabrication method, manipulating application are explored and researched in order to the practical application.This paper uses MATLAB and ANSYS to optimize the microgripper. In order to decrease the maximum stress in flexure hinge, MATLAB optimization toolbox is used to optimize the size of right circular flexure hinge in microgripper. After designing the microgripper using pseudo-rigid-body method, ANSYS finite element optimization method is used to optimize the size of microgripper. It replaces the analogy analysis design used before.The mask plate is made according to the results of optimization design, and three jaw types are designed to manipulate different shape objects. Then orthogonal experiment method is used to optimize the lithography process of UV-LIGA technology to improve the process stability and yield. In order to improve the quality of micro electroforming, composing components of electroforming solution and working conditions of electroforming machine are optimized. And high quality nickel microgripper is fabricated after the study of micro electroforming process.A reliable and practical packaging method based on PCB is proposed to protect the microgripper and supply power. The power and control system is designed and fabricated. Then micromanipulation system based on electrothermally actuated compliant microgripper is set up and micromanipulation experiment is carried out to prove the practicability.