Design and Simulation of a Binary Actuated Parallel Micro-Manipulator

This paper addresses the mechanical design issues for a new binary actuated parallel micromanipulator named BAPAMAN1 (Binary Actuated PArallel micro-MANipulator Version 1). BAPAMAN1 is a three degrees of freedom (d.o.f) spatial manipulator, whose design is based on the use of flexure hinges and Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) actuators. A mechanical design procedure of BAPAMAN1 is described in details with special attention on the design of flexure hinges and placements of SMA actuators due to their special operation characteristics. A 3D model of BAPAMAN1 has been elaborated in Solidworks ® environment, and its motion characteristics have been evaluated on the base of a numerical simulation, which is conducted in Matlab ® environment. Moreover, operation performances of the designed flexure hinges have been characterized via Finite Element Analysis (FEA) by using CosmosWorks ® software package. Simulation results show that the proposed design of BAPAMAN1 has suitable motion capability with reasonable and proper stress and strain concentration effects in the designed flexure hinges. Thus, a first prototype of BAPAMAN1 has been built. It is expected to be used as one module of a multi stages micro-manipulator, which is expected to be applied for the manipulation of micro-meter size components with low-cost easy-operation features.