Hydraulic actuatorsDespite problems associated with leaky valves and seals (a problem in many microfluidic systems), hydraulic actuators have considerable potential as quite a lot of power can be delivered from an external source along very narrow diameter tubes. This has potential in areas such as catheter tip mounted microsurgical tools.LIGA techniques can be used to fabricate turbines (as in figure 17), which can deliver power to cutting tools.
 Figure 17. |