A kinematics modeling and stress analysis method for flexible micro-gripper

Considering the demand on gripping small objects in the micro-assembly and micro-manipulation, we design a monolithic micro-gripper based on flexure hinge and driven by piezoelectric. To overcome the limited displacement of PZT-actuators, dual-stage amplification mechanism is utilized to obtain the large output-displacement. And Parallel four-bar linkage is used to realize parallel clamping. The kinematics modeling method and stress analysis using the pseudo-rigid-body-model (PRBM) and compliant mechanisms are discussed in detail. We get the relationship between the input and output displacement and the stress distribution of the flexible hinges which effectively reduces the time of the mechanical structure design. Finite element method (FEM) was performed to verify the feasibility of this method.