Design of a Compliant Microgripper by Combining a Voice Coil Motor and a Monolithic Modular Mechanism

In this paper, a new compliant microgripper integrating a voice coil motor and a monolithic modular mechanism is designed, analyzed, and studied by simulation. It adopts the modularization idea to divide the overall mechanism into five functional sections. The purpose of the mechanism design is to convert the output displacement of the motor into the gripping motion of two jaws. Compound parallelogram flexures and compound radial flexures are the core elements that enable linear transmission and directional change of motion. The flexible seesaw mechanism allows the gripper to continue to work even if one side of the jaws is blocked. The gripper has a bi-directional large stroke output, which enables both a normally open operation and a normally closed operation. The output stroke of the motor is restricted to prevent excessive deformation and damage to the target arising from displacement overshoot. Theoretical models are derived to obtain critical structural parameters that affect the performance of the gripper. Simulation results indicate that the gripper has good static and dynamic performance.