Johnny C. Ho, Alexandra C. Ford, Yu-Lun Chueh, Paul W. Leu, Onur Ergen, Kuniharu Takei, Gregory Smith, Prashant Majhi, Joseph Bennett, and Ali Javey Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA Berkeley Sensor an...

Department of Electrical Engineering andComputer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA94720, USA. Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Nagaokakyo, Kyoto 617-8555, Japan. Department of Materia...

A microfabricated normally-closed microvalve consisting of a flat silicon spring, a co-sputtered and patterned TitaniumNickel (TiNi) shape memory alloy (SMA) actuator, and an orifice die, is presented. All three components are batch microfabricated using silicon substrates. This microvalve is designed for an actuation mechanism for a pneumatically controlled, biologically inspired six-legged mi...

We present a modular high-vacuum setup for the electrical characterization of single molecules down to liquid helium temperatures. The experimental design is based on microfabricated mechanically controllable break junctions, which offer control over the distance of two electrodes via the bending of a flexible substrate. The actuator part of the setup is divided into two stages. The slow stage ...

This work describes an on-chip integrated micro-actuator device for slack-free carbon nanotube (CNT) resonators, improving frequency tunability and Q factor and to study non-linear mode interaction. The device fabricated on SOI wafer with low thermal budget (<600 K) encompasses a restricted symmetrical out-of-plane vibration and a stiff in-plane electro-thermal actuator with a displacement of ~...

Artificial muscles and electric motors found in autonomous robots and prosthetic limbs are typically battery-powered, which severely restricts the duration of their performance and can necessitate long inactivity during battery recharge. To help solve these problems, we demonstrated two types of artificial muscles that convert the chemical energy of high-energy-density fuels to mechanical energ...

In this paper an optimal choice of actuator for an electric-type active mass driver (AMD) system for structural vibration control using linear quadratic controller has been developed. It is composed of an electric servomotor and a ball screw. The problems that commonly are associated with hydraulic AMD systems as noise, oil leakage, and laborintensive maintenance can be suppressed using an elec...

This paper presents feedforward, feedback and two-degree-of-freedom control applied to an Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite (IPMC) actuator. It presents a high potential for development of miniature robots and biomedical devices and artificial muscles. We have reported in the last few years that dehydration treatment improves the electrical controllability of bending in Selemion CMV-based IPMCs. We...

In recent years, single dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) plasma actuators have gained great interest among all the active flow control devices typically employed in aerospace and turbomachinery applications [1,2]. Compared with the macro SDBDs, the micro single dielectric barrier discharge (MSDBD) actuators showed a higher efficiency in conversion of input electrical power to delivered mecha...

In this study, a novel cascaded robust terminal sliding mode control approach is developed for robotic manipulators including actuator dynamics. The proposed approach can achieve finite-time stability in the presence of arbitrary uncertain mechanical and electrical parameters of the robot model. Corresponding stability analysis is presented to lay a foundation for analytical understanding in ge...