Releasing and accurate placing of adhered micro-objects using high speed motion of end effector

This paper presents an active release method of microobject for the improvement of the position accuracy after releasing by using 3D high speed motions of an end effector. In the micro manipulation, the release task is the challenge work due to adhesion forces. To overcome the adhesion force and to place microobject accurately on the desired location, in this paper, we propose a high speed motion by analyzing dynamic model of manipulated end effector and attached microbeads. Two fingered microhand driven by DC motors and PZT actuators is utilized for this paper. Parallel mecahnism with three PZT actuators was used for making 3D motion at high speed. To generatge high acceleration of end effector, many researchers applied simple vibration by using an additional PZT actuator. In our research, 3D high speed motion with large amplitude was achieved by only using a compacted parallel mechanism. To verify the advantage of the proposed motion, we compare five motions, 1D motions (X, Y, and Z direction) and circular motions (clockwise and counterclockwise direction), by changing the frequency and moving distance of the end effector. From these results of experiments, we conclude that the circular motion can detach microobjects with high placing accuracy after release.