Design and characteristics of a compliant microgripper dedicated to fast microhandling

This paper presents the design and characteristic analysis of a novel piezoelectric actuated microgripper to achieve fast and precision micro-object handling. The microgripper mechanism was firstly introduced, and a two-stage flexure-based amplification, composed of a homothetic bridge type mechanism and a parallelogram leverage mechanism, was designed to obtain a large jaw motion stroke. The kinematic, static and dynamic models of the microgripper were established, and analyses were conducted to evaluate the microgripper characteristics. Wire Electro Discharge Machining (EDM) was used to manufactured the developed microgripper mechanism. Experimental tests were carried out to investigate the microgripper performance, and the experimental results are in a good agreement with the mathematical calculations. The total displacement amplification ratio of the microgripper is 20.96, and the first maximal vibration of the jaws occurs at 895 Hz. Fast grasping of copper wires has been realized through the microgripper.