544 Micro Transportation System with Containers Moved by Electrostatic and Ratchet Mechanism
Details
This paper presents a novel micro transportation system (MTS), which can drive micro containers in both straight and curved paths, based on electrostatic and ratchet mechanism. The micro container, which has driving-wings and anti-reverse-wings attached to the central 'backbone', is driven by electrostatic actuator through the ratchet racks in perpendicular direction. The container with the length and width of 450μm and 250μm, respectively, moves like a water strider with desirable velocity up to 200μm/sec in the straight and curved paths. In order to create the smart and flexible MTS, the elemental modules, e.g. straight, turning and separation modules with the same size (6mm×6mm) have been developed. Therefore, different configurations of the MTS can be created flexibly by assembling the elemental modules.
