A versatile and reconfigurable microassembly workstation

In this paper, a versatile and reconfigurable microassembly workstation designed and realized as a research tool for investigation of the problems in microassembly and micromanipulation processes and recent developments on mechanical and control structure of the system with respect to the previous workstation are presented. These developments include: (i) addition of a manipulator system to realize more complicated assembly and manipulation tasks, (ii) addition of extra DOF for the vision system and sample holder stages in order to make the system more versatile (iii) a new optical microscope as the vision system in order to visualize the microworld and determine the position and orientation of micro components to be assembled or manipulated, (iv) a modular control system hardware which allows handling more DOF. In addition several experiments using the workstation are presented in different modes of operation like tele-operated, semiautomated and fully automated by means of visual based schemes

Performance characterisation of a new photo-microsensor based sensing head for displacement measurement

This paper presents a robust displacement sensor with nanometre-scale resolution over a micrometre range. It is composed of low cost commercially available slotted photo-microsensors (SPMs). The displacement sensor is designed with a particular arrangement of a compact array of SPMs with specially designed shutter assembly and signal processing to significantly reduce sensitivity to ambient light, input voltage variation, circuit electronics drift, etc. The sensor principle and the characterisation results are described in this paper. The proposed prototype sensor has a linear measurement range of 20 μm and resolution of 21 nm. This kind of sensor has several potential applications, including mechanical structural deformation monitoring system

A field programmable gate array based modular motion control platform

The expectations from motion control systems have been rising day by day. As the systems become more complex, conventional motion control systems can not achieve to meet all the specifications with optimized results. This creates the necessity of fundamental changes in the infrastructure of the system. Field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology enables the reconfiguration of the digital hardware, thus dissolving the necessity of infrastructural changes for minor manipulations in the hardware even if the system is deployed. An FPGA based hardware system shrinks the size of the hardware hence the cost. FPGAs also provide better power ratings for the systems as well as a more reliable system with improved performance. As a trade off, the development is rather more difficult than software based systems, which also affects the research and development time of the overall system. In this paper a level of abstraction is introduced in order to diminish the requirement of advanced hardware description language (HDL) knowledge for implementing motion control systems thoroughly on an FPGA. The intellectual property library consists of synthesizable hardware modules specifically implemented for motion control purposes. Other parts of a motion control system, like user interface and trajectory generation, are implemented as software functions in order to protect the modularity of the system. There are also several external hardware designs for interfacing and driving various types of actuators

Miniaturized modular manipulator design for high precision assembly and manipulation tasks

In this paper, design and control issues for the development of miniaturized manipulators which are aimed to be used in high precision assembly and manipulation tasks are presented. The developed manipulators are size adapted devices, miniaturized versions of conventional robots based on well-known kinematic structures. 3 degrees of freedom (DOF) delta robot and a 2 DOF pantograph mechanism enhanced with a rotational axis at the tip and a Z axis actuating the whole mechanism are given as examples of study. These parallel mechanisms are designed and developed to be used in modular assembly systems for the realization of high precision assembly and manipulation tasks. In that sense, modularity is addressed as an important design consideration. The design procedures are given in details in order to provide solutions for miniaturization and experimental results are given to show the achieved performances

Sliding-mode control of a flexure based mechanism using piezoelectric actuators

The position control of designed 3 PRR flexure based mechanism is examined in this paper. The aims of the work are to eliminate the parasitic motions of the stage, misalignments of the actuators, errors of manufacturing and hysteresis of the system by having a redundant mechanism with the implementation of a sliding mode control and a disturbance observe. x-y motion of the end-effector is measured by using a laser position sensor and the necessary references for the piezoelectric actuators are calculated using the pseudo inverse of the transformation matrix coming from the experimentally determined kinematics of the mechanism. The effect of the observer and closed loop control is presented by comparing the results with open loop control. The system is designed to be redundant to enhance the position control. In order to see the effects of the redundant system firstly the closed loop control for active 2 piezoelectric actuators experiments then for active 3 piezoelectric actuators experiments are presented. As a result, our redundant mechanism tracks the desired trajectory accurately and its workspace is bigger

Development of system supervision and control software for a micromanipulation system

This paper presents the realization of a modular software architecture that is capable of handling the complex supervision structure of a multi degree of freedom open architecture and reconfigurable micro assembly workstation. This software architecture initially developed for a micro assembly workstation is later structured to form a framework and design guidelines for precise motion control and system supervision tasks explained subsequently through an application on a micro assembly workstation. The software is separated by design into two different layers, one for real-time and the other for non-realtime. These two layers are composed of functional modules that form the building blocks for the precise motion control and the system supervision of complex mechatronics systems

Ground Robotic Hand Applications for the Space Program study (GRASP)

This document reports on a NASA-STDP effort to address research interests of the NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) through a study entitled, Ground Robotic-Hand Applications for the Space Program (GRASP). The primary objective of the GRASP study was to identify beneficial applications of specialized end-effectors and robotic hand devices for automating any ground operations which are performed at the Kennedy Space Center. Thus, operations for expendable vehicles, the Space Shuttle and its components, and all payloads were included in the study. Typical benefits of automating operations, or augmenting human operators performing physical tasks, include: reduced costs; enhanced safety and reliability; and reduced processing turnaround time

The NASA SBIR product catalog

The purpose of this catalog is to assist small business firms in making the community aware of products emerging from their efforts in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. It contains descriptions of some products that have advanced into Phase 3 and others that are identified as prospective products. Both lists of products in this catalog are based on information supplied by NASA SBIR contractors in responding to an invitation to be represented in this document. Generally, all products suggested by the small firms were included in order to meet the goals of information exchange for SBIR results. Of the 444 SBIR contractors NASA queried, 137 provided information on 219 products. The catalog presents the product information in the technology areas listed in the table of contents. Within each area, the products are listed in alphabetical order by product name and are given identifying numbers. Also included is an alphabetical listing of the companies that have products described. This listing cross-references the product list and provides information on the business activity of each firm. In addition, there are three indexes: one a list of firms by states, one that lists the products according to NASA Centers that managed the SBIR projects, and one that lists the products by the relevant Technical Topics utilized in NASA's annual program solicitation under which each SBIR project was selected