MICRO MECHATRONICS AND MICRO ACTUATORS

Micro mechatronics is the synergetic integration of both mechanical an d electronic systems based on scaling effects in the micro world. A mi cro mechatronics system is expected to be the key component of the mec hanical system, such as in electronic automotive technologies, Micro m echatronics requires the organic combination of micro devices such as micro processor, micro sensor, and micro actuator. Among the micro dev ices, the micro processor and micro sensor have been widely employed i n advanced mechatronics products, but not the micro actuator. This pap er surveys the state of the art of micro mechatronics and deals with m icro actuators as new devices for micro mechatronics and advanced mech atronics, which play an important role in today's integrated mechanica l products. Since micro actuators are still under development, we focu s on micro actuators for further research and development in this pape r.