Semi-invasive blood sampling devices mimic the way female mosquitoes extract blood from a host. They generally consist of a microneedle, a microactuator for needle insertion, a blood extraction mechanism and a blood glucose sensor. These devices have great potential to overcome the major disadvantages of several current blood glucose monitoring methods. Over last two decades, extensive research...

Thin-film shape memory alloys (SMAs) have become excellent candidates for microactuator fabrication in MEMS due to their capability to achieve very high work densities, produce large deformations, and generate high stresses. In general, the material behavior of SMAs is nonlinear and hysteretic. To achieve the full potential of SMA actuators, it is necessary to develop models that characterize t...

Based on the existing dual-stage control scheme for hard disk drives, this paper focuses on the design and analysis of adaptive feedforward control of airflow induced suspension vibration, which utilizes the vibration signal obtained from instrumented suspension. In this scheme, a strain signal on the surface of the instrumented suspension is obtained which is indicative of the suspension’s vib...

Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) is the technology of the very small, and merges at the nano-scale into "Nanoelectromechanical" Systems (NEMS) and Nanotechnology. MEMS are also referred to as micro machines, or Micro Systems Technology (MST). MEMS are separate and distinct from the hypothetical vision of Molecular nanotechnology or Molecular Electronics. MEMS generally range in size from a...

A microactuator for rapid manipulation of discrete microdroplets is presented. Microactuation is accomplished by direct electrical control of the surface tension through two sets of opposing planar electrodes fabricated on glass. A prototype device consisting of a linear array of seven electrodes at 1.5 mm pitch was fabricated and tested. Droplets ~0.7–1.0 ml! of 100 mM KCl solution were succes...

A tool for unified simultaneous simulation of multiphysics problems based on Partial Element Equivalent Circuit (PEEC) method is presented. Extension of PEEC method with thermal and mechanical domains is based on circuit interpretation of Finite Difference (FD) and Finite Element Method (FEM) equations. Equations in FEM case are derived by Galerkin's residual method with basis functions of orde...

As the intelligence and the functionality of microrobots increase, there is a growing need to incorporate sensors into these robots. In order to imit the outer dimensions of these microsystems, this research investigates sensors that can be integrated efficiently into microactuators. Here, a neumatic piston-cylinder microactuator with an integrated inductive position sensor was developed. The m...