Design and fabrication of an electrostatically driven microgripper for blood vessel manipulation

This work is focused on the design and the fabrication of an electrostatically driven microgripper for blood vessel manipulation. The goal is to realise a new system for the automated study of blood vessel wall contraction forces. Our device is based on an electrostatic comb-drive actuated silicon microgripper whose tips can be inserted into blood vessel samples providing isostatic conditions during the test and allowing contraction force measurement in the range of a few mN. A major innovation of the tool compared with existing devices is the capability of scaling down the diameter of the vessels that can be tested, reaching an internal diameter of 50 mu m. In the paper a brief overview of the state of the art is presented, design details, simulations results and steps of the fabrication process are described. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.