Planar fabrication of a mesoscale voice coil actuator

Mesoscale robots are devices with characteristic dimensions in the centimeter to millimeter scale, with feature sizes ranging from millimeters to micrometers. Due to the physics involved in scaling down conventional motors, such robots frequently require novel approaches to actuation. Actuation can have a very significant effect on robot performance, particularly at small scales where locomotion becomes energetically expensive; however, existing options for small-scale actuation are quite limited. We present a mesoscale voice coil actuator (VCA) with favorable scaling characteristics and a design that minimizes costly frictional effects at small scales while allowing fast, linear, high-displacement motion. The VCA is fabricated using planar manufacturing techniques, making it well-suited for integration into a number of mesoscale robotic platforms and for mass production. The designed VCA has a mass of 310mg, maximum force of 11.8mN, bandwidth of 51Hz, and a stroke of 4mm.