Surface and contact forces models within the framework of microassembly

This paper gives a review of existing models used by other authors aiming at modeling micromanipulation tasks. It introduces the distinction between surface forces, which act even at distance (van der Waals (VDW), capillary and electrostatic forces) and contact forces, which are closely related to deformation and adhesion. Moreover, it presents our work on VDW and capillary forces: compared to existing approximations, these models allow to take more parameters into account such as, for example, statistical roughness in VDW forces or the volume of liquid in capillary forces. They could be used, for example, to build up new handling strategies as illustrated in the references cited in the paper. However, this paper focuses on fundamental models and does not present any specific microhandling strategy.