CMOS-Based Readout and Control Electronics for Microgrippers

This paper presents the design of an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) with all the necessary electronic blocks to read out and control Conjugate Surfaces Flexure Hinge (CSFH) microgrippers. The ASIC was fabricated using a high-voltage 0.35 mu m CMOS process and it can sense the positions of the gripping arms with a resolution of 0.10 mu m and control their positions with a steady-state error of 0.12% and a stabilization time of 670ms measured during laboratory tests.