MICROSTEREOPHOTOLITHOGRAPHY AND SHAPE-MEMORY ALLOY FOR THE FABRICATION OF MINIATURIZED ACTUATORS

A new microassembly technique has been developed to combine polymer mi cro-objects fabricated by stereophotolithography with shape memory all oy (SMA) wires. This technique is based on a local laser aided polymer ization allowing SMA wires to be associated with polymer structures. S ince stereophotolithography allows the fabrication of real three-dimen sional objects, different mechanical structures have been designed and manufactured to develop miniaturized mechanical devices (in the centi metre range) with multiple degrees of freedom actuated by SMA wires (d iameter 120 mu m). The actuation principle has been successfully teste d. Experimental measurement procedure and results are presented and di scussed. Further developments and improvements of the actuators are pr oposed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.