Related papers: Multi-Angle Rotational Actuation in a 0.8-mm-Thick…

Electrically-driven soft robots based on piezoelectric actuators may enable compact form factors and maneuverability in complex environments. In most prior work, piezoelectric actuators are used to control a single degree of freedom. In…

Intra-operative image guidance using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can significantly enhance the precision of surgical procedures, such as deep brain tumor ablation. However, the powerful magnetic fields and limited space within an MRI…

Precise surgical procedures may benefit from intra-operative image guidance using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, the MRI's strong magnetic fields, fast switching gradients, and constrained space pose the need for an MR-guided…

Piezoelectric resonators are a common building block for signal processing because of their miniature size, low insertion loss, and high quality factor. As consumer electronics push to millimeter waves frequencies, designers must increase…

Piezoelectric ultrasonic motors perform the advantages of compact design, faster reaction time, and simpler setup compared to other motion units such as pneumatic and hydraulic motors, especially its non-ferromagnetic property makes it a…

We have designed and tested experimentally a morphing structure consisting of a neutrally stable thin cylindrical shell driven by a multiparameter piezoelectric actuation. The shell is obtained by plastically deforming an initially flat…

Micro-scanners have been widely used in many optical applications. The micro-scanner presented in this paper uses multimorph-type bending actuators to tilt a square plate mirror. This paper presents a complete analytical model of the…

A technique to measure microscopic rotational motion is presented. When a small fluorescent polystyrene microsphere is attached to a larger polystyrene microsphere, the larger sphere acts as a lens for the smaller microsphere and provides…

The miniaturization of mechanical machines is critical for advancing nanotechnology and reducing device footprints. Traditional efforts to downsize gears and micromotors have faced limitations at around 0.1 mm for over thirty years due to…

The ability to have multiple magnetic robots operate independently in the same workspace would increase the clinical potential of these systems allowing collaborative operation. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of actuating two…

We report on the electrically driven rotation of $2.4~\mu$m-radius, optically levitated dielectric microspheres. Electric fields are used to apply torques to a microsphere's permanent electric dipole moment, while angular displacement is…

This paper presents a contact-based micromanipulation system for the alignment and installment of microscale magnets into micro robots and devices. Affixing tweezers to a three degree of freedom micromanipulator allows for precise movement…

Accompanied by the development of microfabrication techniques, such as MEMS and micro-TAS, there has been increasing interests on the methodology to generate a desired motion on a micro object in a solution environment. It is well know that…

We report the design and development of a piezoelectric sample rotation system, and its integration into an Oxford Instruments Kelvinox 100 dilution refrigerator, for orientation-dependent studies of quantum transport in semiconductor…

Miniature robots are untethered actuators, which have significant potential to make existing minimally invasive surgery considerably safer and painless, and enable unprecedented treatments because they are much smaller and dexterous than…

Bearingless motors use a single stator assembly to apply torque and magnetic suspension forces on the rotor, making these machines compact with frictionless operation and thus well suited to high-speed applications. One major challenge that…

Electrostatic actuators provide a promising approach to creating soft robotic sheets, due to their flexible form factor, modular integration, and fast response speed. However, their control requires kilo-Volt signals and understanding of…

Microscopic robots could perform tasks with high spatial precision, such as acting in biological tissues on the scale of individual cells, provided they can reach precise locations. This paper evaluates the feasibility of in vivo locomotion…

Foldable robots have been an active area of robotics research due to their high volume-to-mass ratio, easy packability, and shape adaptability. For locomotion, previously developed foldable robots have either embedded linear actuators in,…

The Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) is a powerful instrument to study electronic density of states at surfaces down to atomic scale. Many interesting samples require studying variations as a function of the magnetic field, which is most…