Actionneurs "stick and slip" pour micro-manipulateurs

This thesis is a contribution to the development of simple micromanipulators, having high resolution and several degrees-of-freedom, dedicated to the manipulation of miniature objects, the manipulation of biological specimens or to the assembly of microsystems. The actuators for these micromanipulators must have a submicronic resolution over displacements of a few centimeters at a speed of several millimeters per second. They must also be compact and rigid in order ease their integration and to have a high rejection of the external perturbations (vibrations, temperature changes, etc.). Stick and slip actuators studied in this work fulfil very well these requirements. Their main features are: a resolution better than 5 nm over strokes of a few centimeters at a speed of several millimeters per second (2-5 mm/s); a high rigidity (6.5 N/μm) giving an excellent rejection of external perturbations; an extreme simplicity obtained by the combination of the guiding and actuating functions and by using an innovative concept of monolithic flexible structures. This report presents all the stages of our research work: the state of the art: originally, stick and slip actuators have been developed for the scanning probe microscopy (STM or AFM). We have adapted this concept to our purposes. Several innovative solutions allow us to simplify and improve significantly these actuators; the modeling: it allows us to understand in details the behavior of stick and slip actuators and to optimize them; the study of scaling down: it demonstrates that stick and slip actuators can be miniaturized. New applications in the field of microsystems are therefore promising; the experiment: the characterization of a one-degree-of-freedom actuator demonstrates its performances and validates our modeling; the-implementation-and-tests-of-severa1micro-mani.pulators-actuated-by-stick and slip confirm the pertinence of our approach; The results of this thesis will help engineers to design and implement efficient micromanipulators using stick and slip actuators.