Development of Beetle-Type Robot with Sub-Micropipette Probe

Abstract

We have developed a motion system with tripod piezo tube legs, which is called the beetle-type or Besocke-type system, in order to control the position of a sub-micropipette. The stick-slip lateral motion of the beetle-type robot achieved a minimum step size of 600±200 nm by applying a sawtooth pulse at a voltage of 30 V and a pulse width of 10 ms. The sliding motion for the insertion and extraction of the sub-micropipette was controlled by a piezoactuator, and inverse sawtooth pulses were applied to the actuator to have more precise step motion than the specifications of the actuator, and a minimum step size of 480±80 nm at a pulse width of 0.17 ms was achieved. Nonlinear responses of the step size with sawtooth pulse widths were observed in both lateral motion and pipette insertion/extraction motion.