Design and realization of a 3D digital electromagnetic micro-actuator array for conveyance application

Smart Conveyance Surfaces are significantly used in many industries in accordance to the growing manufacturing demands. They are used to transfer the parts from one manufacturing station to another and can contribute to the assembly of the different parts or during the inspection and logistics operations. This technology is emerging at macro and micro levels and is the backbone to automate manipulation tasks. Several researches are in progress the industrial sector to upgrade or adapt the new trend of Industry 4.0. Miniaturization is also in high demand to obtain cost effective and high precision products with a footprint of few cubic centimetres. To realize this smart conveyance surfaces, various actuation architectures and physical principles can be used. This thesis presents the development of a micro-conveyance device based on an array of digital electromagnetic actuators. The main originality of the proposed work lies in its hexagonal architecture and the ability of each actuator to reach twelve discrete positions distributed at two different levels along z-axis. The proposed device comprises seven actuators assembled in honeycomb architecture to realize conveyance in a collaborative or elementary manner with 4-DOF (three translation and one rotation along z-axis). Each actuator of an architecture consists of mobile part able to switch with the help of electromagnetic Lorentz force. Each actuator can be elementary controlled and exhibits different displacement strokes ranging from 0.5mm to 1.00 mm. The overall dimension of the device is 90x90mm and it is capable of achieving planar motion of a conveyed object due to stick-slip and lift-mode approach. The device has been designed and sized with the help of magnetic and electromagnetic force models. Several prototypes have then been realized using both rapid prototyping and micro-fabrication techniques. These prototypes have then been tested and their ability to realize conveyance tasks has been characterized. A novel compact design of the array with 19 actuators arranged in a honeycomb architecture has also been designed.