Project: Adaptive Integrated Systems (AIS) - Focus: Micropositioning

Funding and project duration:

The project "Adaptive, Integrated Systems" (AIS) with the focus area "Micropositioning" is financially supported by the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture (MWFK) of the State of Brandenburg. The funding takes place from 01.01.2018 - 31.12.2022.

Goals:

In the research subproject "Adaptive Integrated Systems (AIS) - Micropositioning", a drive concept based on electrostatic forces developed at Fraunhofer IPMS is used: the Nanoscopic Electrostatic Drive (NED). The NED-based approach is characterized in particular by the use of an electrostatic system that cannot go into pull-in - i.e., electrode contact - and thus allows much larger displacements up to the mm range than competitive piezo-based systems provide. This AIS subproject produced one- and two-dimensional microactuator systems that can be used for positioning purposes. Even without a closed-loop control system, the systems achieve positioning accuracy in the low micrometer range.

Two main tasks will be carried out during the remainder of the project:

(i) the implementation of a closed control loop to reduce the positioning accuracy by two orders of magnitude as expected;

(ii) the integration of a capacitive position measurement system.

For (ii), the structures are already provided on the microchips during manufacturing, so that only the electronic control has to be extended accordingly to include the position measurement.  The target markets for the 1D and 2D micropositioning systems are optics, microrobotics, micromanipulation and medical technology, to name a few examples. For this purpose, demonstrator concepts and functional samples for the specific customer approach are created in the project.