Driving principles and hardware integration of microrobots employing vibration micromotors

This paper presents a new driving principle for microrobotic platforms whose actuation mechanism is based on two centripetal force actuators. The driving principle results to a controlled motion with precision of a few microns and is suitable for manipulation tasks. The drivers generate an appropriately selected sequence of pulsed actuations resulting in successive microsteps with high repeatability. Simulation results are presented and are compared with experimental results that demonstrate the displacement of a cantilever monitored by a video-microscope. The paper also presents an overview of the hardware assembly process giving emphasis on the integration of the electronic systems and demonstrating the simplicity of the design and the hardware integration process.