Microactuator

A microactuator is a microscopic servomechanism that supplies and transmits a measured amount of energy for the operation of another mechanism or system. As a general actuator, following standards have to be met: For microactuator, there are two in addition
 * Large travel
 * High precision
 * Fast switching
 * Low power consumption
 * Power free force sustainability
 * Microstructurability
 * Integrability

Principle of microactuators
The basic principle can be described as the expression for mechanical work

$$W=\overrightarrow{F}\cdot \Delta \overrightarrow{r}$$

since an actuator is to manipulate positions and therefore force is needed. For different kind of microactuators, different physical principles are applied.

Classes of microactuators

 * Electrostatic
 * Electromagnetic
 * Piezoelectric
 * Fluid
 * Thermal