Design and Fabrication a Long-Gripping-Range Microgripper with Active and Passive Actuators

In this paper, a novel long-gripping-range compliant flexure-based microgripper is developed for high-precision manipulation of micro-objects. The proposed gripper has simple structure with significant specifications like large amplification factor, no backlash, friction free, parallel motion of jaws, large gripping range and in addition, high-resolution motion in the whole stroke. The actuation of the gripper is conducted by one passive microscrew and two active piezoelectric actuators. Finite element method is used for analyzing the stress and displacement of the mechanism. Using the results from FEM analyses, the mechanism is improved and the final shape is obtained. The proposed microgripper is fabricated from high-grade aluminum alloy (Al 7075-T6) using wire electrical discharge machining technique, and the tip displacement of the jaws is measured using the image processing method. The simulation and experimental results show the good performance of the presented microgripper. Finally, the operation indexes of the proposed microgripper are compared with some recent models.