Design and dextrous control of micromanipulator with 6 D.O.F

A six-degrees-of-freedom micromanipulator using PZT actuators has been designed and tested. The main features are that: (1) the micromanipulator is very small and light: (2) it has a position and force feedback system, and can control desired poses and forces; (3) since the manipulator has 6 d.o.f., the tip of this manipulator can move along three axes, and can also rotate along each axis; (4) a fuzzylike variable gain feedback control system is employed, and hence the system performs better than the fixed gain feedback system. These technical merits will make it possible to operate this dextrous micromanipulator in much more complicated environments under a microscope.<<ETX>>