A fully functional micro transportation system with strider-like movement of micro containers

This paper presents a novel micro transportation system (MTS), which can drive micro containers in both straight and curved paths, based on electrostatic and ratchet mechanism. The micro container, which has driving-wings and anti-reverse-wings attached to the central ‘ebackbone’ , is driven by electrostatic actuator through the ratchet racks in perpendicular direction. The container with the length and width of 450μm and 250μm, respectively, moves like a water strider with desirable velocity up to 200μm/sec in the straight and curved paths. In order to create the smart and flexible MTS, the elemental modules, e.g. straight, turning and separation modules with the same size (6mm×6mm) have been developed. Therefore, different configurations of the MTS can be created flexibly by assembling the elemental modules.