Piezoelectric actuators are widely used in micro manipulation applications. However hysteresis nonlinearity limits accuracy of these actuators. This paper presents a novel approach utilizing a piezoelectric nano-stage as slave manipulator of a teleoperation system. The Prandtl-Ishlinskii (PI) model is used to model actuator hysteresis in feedforward scheme to cancel out this nonlinearity. A pas...

The performance of systems that exhibit repetitive disturbances can be significantly improved using repetitive control. If the repetitive disturbance is periodic with respect to time, perfect asymptotic disturbance rejection can be achieved by well known methods. However, many systems have a repetitive nature with respect to a variable other than time. For this type of systems, we propose a del...

The ineluctable change to micro and subsequently nano has engendered the need for precision control and actuation. With Piezoelectric technology at the heart, a new type of motor is improving small-scale motion systems in a big way. In the following study a novel design of a travelling-wave-type motor based on flexural excitations (d-15 effect) is analyzed using finite element method. The objec...

Micromachined thermal multimorph actuators for out-of-plane displacements have been designed and fabricated by Multi-Users MEMS Process (MUMPs) with a post-processing bulk etching step. Micromachined actuators have potential applications in micromanipulation and nanoposition such as manipulation of scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tips, nanopositioner for nano-assembly, micro/nanorobots and ...

in this paper the design of a biped robot actuated with shape memory alloy (sma) springs with minimum degrees of freedom is presented. sma springs are a class of smart materials that are known for their high power to mass and volume ratios. it was shown that utilizing spring type of smas have many advantages as large deformation, smooth motion, silent and clean movement compared to ordinary typ...

AbstractWe have demonstrated the impact of developments in nanotechnology to Hard Disk Drive (HDD) technology. We have put forth a proposition to enhance the modeling of future storage devices based on innovations in the field of Nanotechnology and MEMS. We have elucidated the influence of recent advances of Nano-Composites, MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) etc. and their implications to...

The present paper reports the development of an in situ nanotensilometer that enables highly reliable mechanical tensile testing on individual micro-/nano-scale structures. The device features independent measurement of force and displacement histories in the specimen with nanoNewton force and sub-nanometer displacement resolutions, respectively. Moreover, the device is well suited for in situ ...

Quantum fluctuations give rise to van der Waals and Casimir forces that dominate the interaction between electrically neutral objects at sub-micron separations. Under the trend of miniaturization, such quantum electrodynamical effects are expected to play an important role in micro- and nano-mechanical devices. Nevertheless, utilization of Casimir forces on the chip level remains a major challe...

Theoretical analysis and Computer simulations have proven to be cost-effective and powerful tools in scientific studies of materials, particularly at nano-scale where synthesis of nano-structures, interpretation of their observed character and exploration of new structures are not always straight forward. We present here fundamental principles of techniques used today for computational simulati...