Control of micromanipulator. (7th report, Design and experimental result of 6 D.O.F. micromanipulator with electrosatic actuators).

This paper deals with a new mechanism and the experiments of a 6 D. O. F. micromanipulator based on electrostatic actuations. This proposed micromanipulator is aiming at applications of biotechnology, microsurgery, and nanotechnology. Since operations in these fields grow rapidly and complicatedly, movable dexterous micromanipulators with multiple degrees of freedom such as 6 D.O. F. are desired. The salient features of this microactuator/manipulator are that: (1) it is structurally very compact since this micromanipulator is fabricated and assembled using methods of the photoetching process; (2) it has six degrees of freedom for motion control: the manipulator can move along three axes, and can also rotate along each axis; (3) it is easy to make the entire actuator. This paper demonstrates some of the static motions of the new actuators, and these functional merits will make it possible to operate the micromanipulator in a much more complicated environment under the microscope.