This paper focuses on the design of a normally open micro-gripper, based on flexible arrangements, driven by a chevron actuator. To not generate a high temperature in their jaws, and thereby increase the potential of its use, for its operation, a 2 V power supply is used, reaching a maximum temperature of 112 ° C, at one of the anchors of the chevron actuator, a maximum temperature on the tips of the jaws of 89.5 ° C. The total displacement between the jaws of the microgripper, with the maximum voltage applied, is 20 μm, which allows to hold microobjects within a range of dimensions between 161 μm and 181 μm. At this voltage value, the reaction force at the tip of the jaws is 343.84 μN, making possible the holding of objects weighing no more than 33.14 μg.

In this paper, a novel microgripper based on two perpendicular arrangements of beams and a chevron actuator is shown. In each perpendicular arrangement, the constrained displacement of the double clamped beams, joined at their endpoint, produces a buckling in each beam, which favors the displacement of each arm of the microgripper, normally open. These arrangements constitute the highly flexible structures of the microgripper. Their buckling is produced by the force applied by chevron arrow, producing a reaction force in the range of 174.44 μN in the microgripper jaws. Chevron actuator is fed by a thermal source. Temperature in microgripper tips is of 34.42°C and the operation frequency is 33.966 kHz, at maximum load thermal applied of 200°C. The mechanical, thermal and modal analyses of this integrated structure was supported by SIMSOLID TM , based on Finite Element Analysis. The simulation was developed with Polysilicon as structural material.

This article presents the design and implementation of a microgripper device actuated by a piezoelectric stack. In order to reduce fabrication costs, conventional piezoelectric buzzers are used that are easily found in the market at very low cost. Polylactic Acid (PLA) was chosen as the structural material for the design of the mechanisms of the microgripper, the choice of this material considerably reduces the total implementation cost. The originality of this work resides in the material used and in the stacked piezoelectric actuator. The main contribution is the demonstration of a design methodology that implements prototype compliance mechanisms at millimeter scale for validation purposes before proceeding to the fabrication in micrometric scale. Even so, the system in mm scale can also be used for micromanipulation due to the range of its microgripper jaws' aperture and its reliability. ANSYS™ was used as the software tool for simulation.

In this paper, the optimization of a chevron V-shape microactuator device to achieve higher actuation force and displacement is discussed. General information approach that includes the description of a physical model used in order to analyze the device behavior and the optimization of its design is considered. Shuttle and beams of a conventional electrothermal chevron V-shape microactuator device were modified. Pneumatic microactuators were implemented along the shuttle. The device was designed with silicon material. The device was characterized through a coupled electro-thermomechanical analysis using ANSYS-Workbench. Compared to the conventional chevron V-shape microactuator, the output work of the improved microactuator shows an increment of about 50% in displacement and 40% in actuation force, at the same maximum temperature source applied. A microgripper is developed are immediate application.

The design and fabrication of an individual patch antenna were realized in order to obtain an efficient and economical antenna replacement to routers, which operate at 2.4 GHz. This rectangular microstrip antenna was corner truncated rectangular due to its bigger gain compared with the rectangular one, because of losses reduction. With this antenna the indoor communication was possible, but it was not enough to supply the outdoor one. In order to provide also the outdoor service, antenna arrays were developed, on the base of the corner truncated rectangular antenna, considering traditional configurations such as, a driven patch antenna gap coupled to four patches along the edges as a first approximation. As second one, a driven patch antenna directly coupled to four patches along the edges was analyzed, and finally, a driven patch antenna was coupled considering both types of coupling. The last case constitutes a novel structure, which showed the biggest gain, but, experimentally, also showed a little displacement of the central frequency. The indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi communication was possible with the last two arrays. Their main limitations are their sizes, but they have competitive costs.