Note: A novel integrated microforce measurement system for plane-plane contact research

The evaluation of plane-plane contact force has become a big issue in micro-/nano research, for example in microassembly. However with the lack of effective experimental equipments, the research on plane-plane contact has been limited to theoretical formulations or virtual simulation. In this paper, a microforce sensor and precision parallel robot integrated system is proposed for the microforce measurement of plane-plane contact. In the proposed system, the two objects are fixed on the parallel robot end-platform and the microforce sensor probe tip, respectively, and the high precision robot system is employed to provide six degree-of-freedom motions between both objects. So it is convenient for the microforce measurement between the planar objects with different orientations. As a significant application, the proposed system is utilized for measurements of pull-off force between planar objects, in which the validation of the system is demonstrated in practice. The proposed microforce measurement system is generic, which can be extended to a variety of microforce measurements in plane-plane contact.