Adhesion Forces Reduction by Oscillation for Micro Manipulation

In the micro region, for scale effect, the force (attracting force) proportional to the area and length of van der Waals attraction, surface tension, and electrostatic force become dominant compared to the force proportional to the force of gravity and inertia. These attracting forces create an adhesion force between the target object and tool. To cope with this adhesion force, we are proposing a method of mitigating adhesion force through vibration. By minutely vibrating the end-effector and contacting it (bringing it near to) with the physical object on the table (foundation), the adhesion force between the end-effector and physical object will become small compared to the force between the table (foundation) and physical object. By applying this method, we can manipulate objects in the same way as manipulation of the micro region. Based on this method, we are developing methods of automatically conducting various macro manipulation.