Study on an ECF micropump-integrated microhand composed of eccentric tube type microactuators

Microactuators driven by fluid have been developed. This paper presents an eccentric tube type microactuator having ECF micropump inside and applies to a novel microhand. First, an eccentric tube type microactuator was made by high precision molding of PDMS. Second, the ECF micropump was designed for high output pressure and fabricated by MEMS technology. The size is 10×10 mm2 and the electrodes (TPSEs) are serially cascaded in 88 electrode pairs. The characteristics of the ECF micropump are experimentally investigated. The output pressure without flow was 78.3 kPa, while the flow rate without load pressure was 23.3 mm3/s at 1.25 kV. Last, we formed a novel microhand composed of three eccentric tube type microactuators, ECF micropump and fluidic channel parts. Three fingers are stuck together at 0.75 kV. As the dynamic characteristics, the edge time with voltage-on and voltage-off are 1.8 s and 0.6 s at 0.72 kV, respectively.