Fluid driven microactuator with feedback mechanism

A prototype model of a fluid-driven microactuator, which has a planar piston, a four-way control valve, and an input shaft with a feedback link to regulate the valve, is described. The actuator is a sort of mechanical amplifier to augment the positional deviation and provide force at the input shaft. Fabrication of the actuator includes bulk micromachining of two pieces of silicon substrate and subsequent substrate-supported assembly using electrostatic bonding. The merits of the design are expected to be in output density, scalability, and feedback ability without electronic devices. The output force and transfer characteristics were examined to ascertain approximate linearity.<>