A monolithic compliant microgripper for UW RoboFly

Abstract

Compliant structures reduce part counts and are easier to assemble at micro and meso- scales ascompared to their rigid counterparts. In this work, we design and prototype in-plane bendable flexures to build a compliant microgripper. We use pop-up lamination hinges made from nitinol and laminated with FR-4 sandwiches, to induce directional stiffness in the flexures. This enables the flexures to predominantly bend in-plane. These compliant composite flexures are capable of taking 10 times their weight and are laser micro-machined using a nano-laser with short pulse width. Ultimately we build a miniature straight-line mechanism such as the lagged lambda to demonstrate the working and the capability of these flexures. One application shown in this work is a compliant monolithic microgripper that is light enough to be mounted on the UW RoboFly for purposes such as sensor dropping from the flapping-wing robot[1] or to pre-emptively charge aerial vehicles through a wire from the gripper.