Design and Fabrication of a Precise Micro Actuator Using a Fused Deposition Modelling Additive Manufacturing Technique

This paper presents the design of a high-precision micro actuator capable of achieving a resolution of 1 micron and a stroke length of 20 mm. For accuracy and sustainability, the micro actuator uses a stepper motor-based mechanism that can maintain positions indefinitely without using active power. The Autodesk Fusion and ANSYS student version and is used to model the actuator and analysis, respectively. Furthermore, Proteus 8.12 ensures for circuit simulation with ARDUINO IDE 1.8.6. Additive manufacturing techniques such as fused deposition modelling (FDM) with polylactic acid (PLA) is used to fabricate the actuator. Cost analysis is also performed, and it is found to be much cheaper than the products available in the market.