Design and Finite Element Analysis of an Electrothermally Actuated Microgripper for Biomedical Applications

Micromanipulation devices are becoming fundamental tools to study and understand cell biology and cell mechanics. Indeed, to study the individual cell behaviors and interactions, cell samples need to be grasped and moved to testing devices. In recent years, micromanipulators have been demonstrated as an effective means to provide precise sample manipulation. In this paper, a detailed overview of designing and simulation of a biocompatible electro-thermally actuated microgripper with rotary capacitive position sensor is presented. The microgripper is actuated by a chevron-shaped thermal actuator with thin hinges and a rotary capacitive position sensor is integrated with the links of the microgripper in order to sense the microgripper tweezers position. The microgripper herein reported can manipulate biological samples in the size range between 50 µm to 150 µm. Based on the sensitivity calculation of the rotary capacitive position sensors, the sensitivity of the displacement measurement is 102 fF/µm.