Manual Alignment of Dual End-Effectors for Piezo-Driven Microhand

In recent years, micromanipulator with dual end-effectors called microhand has been widely used in industrial and biological fields. Whether the tip positions of the two end-effectors of the microhand can be accurately aligned seriously affects the precise grasping of the microhand. However, few researchers have presented practical ways for precisely aligning the tip positions of a 6-DOF microhand's two end- effectors. This paper proposes a novel, inexpensive, lightweight, robust, and easy-to-use microhand dual end-effectors clamping device that can precisely and quickly align the two end-effectors of a 6-DOF microhand. First, we describe the microhand dual end-effectors clamping device's lightweight structural design. After that, we simplify the microhand dual end-effectors clamping device model and create a mathematical model to determine the relationship between the end-effectors' tip position and the rotation angles of screw No.1, screw No.2, screw No.3 of the microhand dual end-effectors clamping device. Through experimentation, we are able to attain precise alignment of the two end-effectors tip positions of the 6-DOF microhand, so we confirm that our mathematical model is true. Finally, we use the impulse response of PZT in the microhand's lower module to confirm the stability of the microhand dual end- effectors clamping device. We believe that the proposed the microhand dual end-effectors clamping device has great potential in industrial and biological applications as a universal tool for precise alignment of the tip positions of the two end-effectors of a 6-DOF microhand.