Micro actuator array on a flexible sheet — Smart MEMS sheet

This paper reports fabrication results of a microactuator array on a flexible sheet. The design was based on the concept of “smart MEMS sheet”, a flexible version of autonomous decentralized MEMS. The fabricated actuator array consists of thermally driven cantilever actuators (ciliary actuators) and the flexible sheet is Kapton^® sheet. Both are made of Polyimide, a flexible material. We succeeded to fabricate 768 actuators on the sheet of 18mm × 24mm and tried to operate it as a 2D manipulator on a curved surface.