Microactuator

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

• Microstructurability
• Integrability

Principle of microactuators

The basic principle can be described as the expression for mechanical work
$W=\overrightarrow{F}\cdot \mathrm{\Delta }\overrightarrow{r}$
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

• Electrostatic
• Electromagnetic
• Piezoelectric
• Fluid
• Thermal

See also

• Newton's laws
• Euler–Bernoulli beam equation
• Electrostatics
• Electromagnetism
• Piezoelectricity
• Microfluidics
• Sensors
• Nanotube nanomotor