Introduction to Micromechanisms and Microactuators

Introduction.- Miniaturization and Microsystems.- Scaling Laws: Science of Miniaturization.- Micromechanisms.- Design of Micromechanisms.- Dynamics of Micromechanisms.- Microactuators.- Microfabrication and Futuristic Issues.

Amitabha Ghosh, did his Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Calcutta University in 1962, 1964 and 1969, respectively. After serving as a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at his alma mater, Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur (now an Institute of National Importance - Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur) from 1965 to 1970 Professor Ghosh joined Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in January 1971 as an Assistant Professor. Since 1975 June he served the Institute as Professor of Mechanical Engineering till his retirement in 2006. During 1977 - 1978 Professor Ghosh visited RWTH Aachen as a Senior Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and subsequently, he visited RWTH Aachen with Humboldt fellowship many more times till 2012. He served Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur as the Director from 1997 to 2002. His primary areas of research are Manufacturing Science, Robotics, Kinematics and Mechanism Theory and Dynamics of Mechanical Systems. Professor Ghosh has written a number of text books which are very popular both in India and abroad. He has guided many Master's and doctoral students and published a large number of research papers. He received many academic awards including a number of Calcutta University Gold Medals, D Sc (h.c.), Distinguished Teacher award from IIT Kanpur and Award for Excellence in Research by National Academy of Engineering. He is a fellow of all the four national science and engineering academies in India.

Burkhard Joachim Corves is currently University Professor and Director of the Department of mechanism theory and machine dynamics at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He received his PhD in 1989 from the same university. Dr Corves has to his credit several books and almost 200 technical papers covering different topics such as robotics, cam mechanism, glass machinery, pneumatic mechanisms, computer-aided graphical analysis and synthesis inmechanism theory,