International audienceThis paper deals with the optimal design of monolithic piezoelectric microactuators with integrated proprioceptive sensors. Dedicated to the microrobotic and micromechatronic fields, these works detail the modelling and the characterization of compliant structures with integrated actuating and sensing elements. The proposed optimal design procedure adresses not only static criteria but also dynamic ones. This leads to microdevices which are more performant with regards to mechanical (displacement, force...) and control (dynamics, stability, precision) characteristics. Efficient design of such devices is achieved using a flexible building block method. A topological optimization method combined with an evolutionary algorithm is used to optimize the design of truss-like planar structure. This method chooses the best location among the different piezoelectric elements. Different mechanical, actuation or sensing elements are accordingly chosen from a data bank. From the control point of view, optimisation criteria are considered to enforce the observability of the vibrational dominant modes of the structure. Therefore, control and observation Gramians are exploited in the optimal design to shape the open loop frequency response of both, actuation and sensing functions of the integrated device. In the last part of the paper, based on these results, the optimal design and manufacturing of an innovative piezoelectric flexible microgripper is proposed. The prototype is manufactured from a monolithic piezoelectric material (PIC 151). Its reduced size (15 mm x 18 mm) fits the requirement of both microrobotics and micromechatronics applications, which is suitable for micromanipulation tasks. The characterization and the performance of this integrated microactuator finally close the paper and the efficiency of the optimal design procedure for micromechatronics applications are shown
