Experimental Performance Evaluation of Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) Compliant Micro Gripper for Micro Assembly

This study introduces an innovative design for a compliant micro gripper based on Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) technology, intended for micro-assembly applications where SMA wire is used as an active actuator for opening and closing the jaw of micro gripper and gripping the object because it has a flexible behavior with high strength and large defection. This SMA wire can achieve the active actuator property by shape-changing properties with temperature. To control the temperature, the mathematical modeling and electro-mechanical characterizations of SMA wire are carried out by applying Joule's heating law method for identifying shape-changing properties with temperature. An experimental testing setup is also developed for characterizations of SMA wire where the behavior of SMA wire is controlled by setting the control parameters using the Lab VIEW software. After testing the SMA wires, the key finding is that the SMA wire shows steady-state behavior. Further, an SMA-based compliant micro gripper is developed. This development demonstrates that SMA wire facilitate the opening and closing of the jaws during the handling of miniature objects which shows that this flexible SMA-based micro gripper can be utilized in futuristic micro-assembly applications.