A microactuator is a microscopic servomechanism that supplies and transmits a measured amount of energy for the operation of another mechanism or system. As a general actuator, following standards have to be met:

  • Large travel
  • High precision
  • Fast switching
  • Low power consumption
  • Power free force sustainability

For microactuator, there are two in addition

Principle of microactuators

The basic principle can be described as the expression for mechanical work W = F → ⋅ Δ r → {\displaystyle W={\overrightarrow {F}}\cdot \Delta {\overrightarrow {r}}} since an actuator is to manipulate positions and therefore force is needed. For different kind of microactuators, different physical principles are applied.

Classes of microactuators

Sources:

See also