Micro-hinges changed flexural rigidity intermittently for micromechanism joints

Abstract

In order to reduce the output errors of micromechanisms, our study has suggested the use of new micro-hinges with a rigidity that has been made suitable enough to decrease the differences between the hinge end locus and the circular locus. Based on this, we have conducted theoretical analyses, while at the same time creating micro-hinge models using a semiconductor minute processing technique (RIE, etc.) for our experiments. Afterwards, we will discuss and study the effectiveness of the use of the suggested micro-hinges, through comparisons with conventional shaped micro-hinges. The results clarified that the suggested hinge models could reduce errors with the circular locus. This ultimately confirms the effectiveness of our newly reinforced micro-hinge.