A MICRO MOTION SYSTEM BASED ON POLYIMIDE JOINT ACTUATORS Thorbjörn Ebefors, Johan U. Mattsson, Edvard Kälvesten and Göran Stemme

Presented at the 12h. European Conference on Solid-State Transducers (EUROSENSORS XII), Southampton, UK, Sept. 13-16, 1998, pp. 391-394.

Abstract A micro motion system (e.g. conveyance system) based on arrays of movable robust silicon legs raised with the use of polyimide micro-joints has been developed and investigated. The motion is obtained by thermal actuation of the polyimide joints using electrical heating. Successful experiments of moving flat "medium size" objects in the mm range has been performed with a one-dimensional test conveyer . The maximum measured velocity was 1.3 mm/s for a system consisting of legs with a length of 0.5 mm at a driving frequency of 50 Hz. Different loads were applied on a test conveyer with 12 legs. The weight of the heaviest mass that was moved was 2.1 g (350 mg/leg). Click here to download the full-text paper.