Design for a Micro-gripping System Applied in Handling the Flexible Wires

To realize automatic welding flexible wire, a micro-gripping system applied in handling the flexible wires with a diameter of tens of microns was designed in this paper. The process of handling the flexible wires was divided into four sub-procedures, i.e., the position computing, the wire-gripping, the wire-dragging and the wire-releasing sub-procedures, which were realized through different structures and methods. The position computing sub-procedure output the relative distance between the micro-gripper and the flexible wire, which was constructed through a microscopic stereovision system. The other three sub-procedures mainly for handling the flexible wires were realized through designing a micro-gripper. The structure of the micro-gripping system was designed and composed of microscopic the stereovision system, the micro-gripper and the control system. Moreover, the mechanical property of the micro-gripper was simulated precisely. Results show that our system can precisely compute the relative distance between the micro-gripper and the wire, and effectively grip, drag and release the flexible wires. The micro-gripping system can be widely used in the different areas of micromanipulation.