Smart materials for actuation in microrobotics

This paper describes the implementation of smart materials in actuators which are employed by mobile microrobots. A versatile microrobot is able to perform complex handling and joining procedures of microobjects with high precision. Such a microrobot requires precise actuators made of specific smart materials. These materials enable the microrobots to fulfill movements in coarse- and fine-positioning mode. The actuator material, currently most frequently used for the coarse-positioning mode, is a piezoelectric ceramic. It is important for the coarse-positioning actuators to be able to carry the entire weight of the microrobots, to provide a velocity of several cm/s and a positioning accuracy in a range of a few μm. The actuators for a fine-positioning unit have to provide an accuracy in the range of a few nanometers. The workspace of a fine-positioning unit depends on a task and is in between a few μm 3 and several cm 3 . For this use, piezoelectric ceramics are suitable as well. Furthermore, the employment of ferrofluids is promising.