Fully Programmable MEMS Ciliary Actuator Arrays for Micromanipulation Tasks

The rst micromachined bimorph organic ciliary array with on-chip CMOS circuitry is presented. This device is composed of an 8 8 array of cells each having four orthogonally oriented actuators in an overall die size of 9:4mm 9:4mm. The polyimide based actuators were fabricated directly above the selection and drive circuitry. Selection and activation of actuators in this array shows that integration was successful. The integration of CMOS electronics and MEMS micromechanisms allows the implementation of new tasklevel micromanipulation strategies. New low-level control algorithms (actuator gaits) were also demonstrated. The array was programmed to perform several kinds of manipulation tasks, including linear translation, diagonal motion, as well as vector eld operations such as squeeze eld and radial eld orienting and centering. Preliminary experiments were also performed with the rst implementation of a \universal eld" that uniquely positions and orients any non-symmetric part without programming or sensor feedback. All tasks were demonstrated using thin silicon dice of about 3mm 3mm 0:5mm size as the object being moved.