Development of microhand utilizing singularity of parallel mechanism

In the fields of medicine and biology, it is essential to realize fine manipulation. Therefore, micromanipulation techniques and micromanipulators such as microgrippers and optical tweezers have been developed. We have developed a two-fingered microhand which is using the parallel mechanism to realize precise and stable micromanipulation. However, the previous microhand has problems about workspace and vibration. In this paper, the development of a new microhand which solves problems of previous microhand. The characteristic of new microhand is to enlarge the workspace utilizing the singularity of the parallel mechanisms. Inverse kinematics and structural analysis are used to analyze the workspace, and we show that results of two analyses match. Vibration analysis simulates transportation task and grasping task for manipulation. The new microhand has a potential to reduce the vibration by vibration analysis results.