Contactless Assembly of a Pi and a Plug Micropart with Electrostatic Force Fields

The assembly of a plug and a pi micropart with electrostatic force fields on a micro-manipulation platform is studied. The operational principle of the platform is based on its electrodes activations that result in interacting with the neighboring microparts’ electrodes. The components are conveyed on the device with transfer lines reaching random configurations and their micro-manipulation begins with their centralization on a platform electrode. Then, a new heuristic method searches for the best place on the platform where they will be assembled while the presence of the undesired electrostatic stack phenomena is avoided. Based on the heuristic’s results, the microparts are reoriented and move towards their assembly configuration. At the final stage of the process, a stabilizing activation method is applied for assembling the microparts effectively. The steps of the assembly method are described and simulated and the results are shown and discussed.