Development and precision position/force control of a new flexure-based microgripper

This paper presents the design, modeling and position/force control of a new piezo-driven microgripper with integrated position and force sensors. The structural design of the microgripper is based on double amplification mechanisms employing the bridge-type mechanism and the parallelogram mechanism. The microgripper can generate a large gripping range and pure translation of the gripping arm. Through the pseudorigid-body-model method, theoretical models are derived. By means of several finite-element analysis simulations, the optimal structural parameters for the microgripper are acquired and the theoretical models are analyzed and validated. Furthermore, to improve the performance of the microgripper, a new hybrid position/force control scheme employing a nonlinear fuzzy logic controller combined with an incremental proportional-integral controller is presented. The control scheme is capable of regulating the position and the gripping force of the microgripper simultaneously. Experimental investigation and validation were performed and the experimental results verify the effectiveness of the developed structural design and the proposed hybrid control scheme. (paper)