DESIGN OF ELECTROSTATICALLY ACTUATED MICROGRIPPER FOR MEDICAL APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Last decades, the importance of micro biomedical instrument has grown at a rate even faster than in previous. This acceleration was primary due to the increasing demand for high quality medical care in highly developed countries, and also due expansion in MEMS technologies. MEMS based micro gripper is one of the major focuses for many medical applications such as microsurgery, micro assembling and testing of micro components, and measuring properties of biological cells and small-scale tissue manipulation. This research presents electrostatically actuated cantilever beam used as micro gripper in medical application. This electrostatic comb drive micro gripper is designed using different materials (Si, SiO2, ,poly silicon ,Si3N4) then analyzed the main characteristics of the micro gripper using a model designed by finite elements method (ANSYS). In addition, the displacement of gripper arms, stress in comb drive, and temperature that generated from actuating were determined. Also the forces applied to the grasped object were studied. Finally kinematics characterization of different analyzed topologies of the micro gripper is discussed and couples of suggestion are given to increase the accuracy of the design.