20.500.12556/DKUM-98135 One-finger gripper for microobjects to submillimeter-sized objects based on temperatures of dew and freezing points The new method proposed in this study, featuring a one-finger gripper, uses three types of forces—van der Waals force, capillary force, and coupling force due to ice—to grip and release microobjects to submillimeter-sized objects (5 to 300 µm). The gravitational force of an object can be neglected in the case of microobjects, but this is not the case for submillimeter-sized objects. This is the first reason that we use the coupling force due to ice; the second reason is that the shape of a micro- or submillimeter-sized object does not matter in this case. The usage of all three forces yields greater versatility regarding objects of different sizes and shapes and, consequently, greater overall reliability in gripping or releasing compared with methods that use only one or two of the mentioned forces. In this study, the laboratory set-up involved the active control of the temperature for both the one-finger gripper and the releasing surface for objects from −25 °C to 40 °C in a closed dust-free chamber in atmospheric air at relative humidity (RH) = 30%. A relatively low RH was achieved with the RH controller, enabling the release or grip procedures to last approx. 2–3 s for microobjects and 6 s for submillimeter-sized objects with the same equipment. one-finger gripper microobjects submilimeter-sized objects capilary force van der Waals force coupling force due to ice prijemalo z enim prstom mikro objekti predmeti velikosti submilimetra kapilarna sila true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik https://www.mdpi.com/journal/micromachines © 2026 by the authors Članek v reviji 2026-05-19 11:13:31 2026-05-19 11:13:31 2026-05-20 03:16:18 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 2 str. iss. 5, [article no.] 573 Vol. 17 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 2026-02-26 2026-04-24 2026-05-05 681.5 278513667 10.3390/mi17050573 2072-666X micromachines-17-00573.pdf micromachines-17-00573.pdf 1 9471D551C65A79EABEE47327E0351305 f51a8a0597604574163154e8103ee538b2d2c500e5b44df6e9e87ce0a8811229 45dd3c9b-5363-11f1-a822-00155d580e34 https://dk.um.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=206221 Fakulteta za elektrotehniko, računalništvo in informatiko 0 0 0