A multi-fingered micromechanism for coordinated micro/nano manipulation

Coordinated manipulation of micro-scale objects is critical for advancing several emerging applications such as microassembly and manipulation of biological cells. Most of the existing designs for micromanipulators are designed to accomplish primarily spatial positioning functionalities using positioning stages. Relatively, there are very few micromanipulators capable of ‘grip-and-place’ functionality that comprises both gripping and positioning at micro-scales. However, such manipulators are generally bulky. This paper introduces a novel concept of a miniaturized micromanipulator with multiple fingers for coordinated planar manipulation that involves both gripping and positioning of micro-scale objects. In this micromanipulator, multiple independently actuated fingers coordinate with each other to accomplish the manipulation. The paper presents a systematic design of the micromanipulator through shape optimization of each finger for a rationally chosen topology and a proof-of-concept prototype of the device fabricated using conventional microfabrication processes. Experimental results characterizing the input–output behavior of a finger mechanism in the prototype device are presented and an excellent correlation between the experimental results and the theoretical results validating both the design and the fabrication of the micromanipulator prototype is demonstrated. Experiments involving coordinated manipulation of 15 μm diameter polystyrene microspheres using multiple fingers in the micromanipulator station are also presented. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)