A Low-Voltage Large-Displacement Large-Force Inchworm Actuator

Inchworm microactuators are popular in micropositioning applications for their long ranges. However, until now, they could not be considered for applications such as in vivo biomedical applications because of their high input voltages. This paper reports on the modeling, design, fabrication, and testing of a new family of pull-in-based electrostatic inchworm microactuators which provides a solution to this problem. Actuators with only 7-V operating voltage are achieved with a f +/- 18-mu m total range and a +/- 30-mu N output force. Larger operating voltage (16 V) actuators show even better results in force (+/- 110 mu N) and range (+/- 35 mu m). The actuator has an in-plane angular deflection conversion which provides a force-displacement tradeoff and allows us to set step sizes varying from few nanometers to few micrometers with a minor change in design. In this paper, we designed 1- and 4-mu m step-size devices. The actuator step size may change during the operation because of the slipping of the shuttle and the beam bending; however, our model successfully explains the reasons. One of our actuator prototypes has survived more than 25 million cycles without performance deterioration. The device is fabricated using the silicon-on-insulator-based multiuser MEMS process.