Workshop on "Control issues in the micro / nano - world".

International audienceDuring the last decade, the need of systems with micro/nanometers accuracy and fast dynamics has been growing rapidly. Such systems occur in applications including 1) micromanipulation of biological cells, 2) micrassembly of MEMS/MOEMS, 3) micro/nanosensors for environmental monitoring, 4) nanometer resolution imaging and metrology (AFM and SEM). The scale and requirement of such systems present a number of challenges to the control system design that will be addressed in this workshop. Working in the micro/nano-world involves displacements from nanometers to tens of microns. Because of this precision requirement, environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, vibration, could generate noise and disturbance that are in the same range as the displacements of interest. The so-called smart materials, e.g., piezoceramics, magnetostrictive, shape memory, electroactive polymer, have been used for actuation or sensing in the micro/nano-world. They allow high resolution positioning as compared to hinges based systems. However, these materials exhibit hysteresis nonlinearity, and in the case of piezoelectric materials, drifts (called creep) in response to constant inputs In the case of oscillating micro/nano-structures (cantilever, tube), these nonlinearities and vibrations strongly decrease their performances. Many MEMS and NEMS applications involve gripping, feeding, or sorting, operations, where sensor feedback is necessary for their execution. Sensors that are readily available, e.g., interferometer, triangulation laser, and machine vision, are bulky and expensive. Sensors that are compact in size and convenient for packaging, e.g., strain gage, piezoceramic charge sensor, etc., have limited performance or robustness. To account for these difficulties, new control oriented techniques are emerging, such as[d the combination of two or more ‘packageable' sensors , the use of feedforward control technique which does not require sensors, and the use of robust controllers which account the sensor characteristics. The aim of this workshop is to provide a forum for specialists to present and overview the different approaches of control system design for the micro/nano-world and to initiate collaborations and joint projects

Haptic feedback in teleoperation in Micro-and Nano-Worlds.

International audienceRobotic systems have been developed to handle very small objects, but their use remains complex and necessitates long-duration training. Simulators, such as molecular simulators, can provide access to large amounts of raw data, but only highly trained users can interpret the results of such systems. Haptic feedback in teleoperation, which provides force-feedback to an operator, appears to be a promising solution for interaction with such systems, as it allows intuitiveness and flexibility. However several issues arise while implementing teleoperation schemes at the micro-nanoscale, owing to complex force-fields that must be transmitted to users, and scaling differences between the haptic device and the manipulated objects. Major advances in such technology have been made in recent years. This chapter reviews the main systems in this area and highlights how some fundamental issues in teleoperation for micro- and nano-scale applications have been addressed. The chapter considers three types of teleoperation, including: (1) direct (manipulation of real objects); (2) virtual (use of simulators); and (3) augmented (combining real robotic systems and simulators). Remaining issues that must be addressed for further advances in teleoperation for micro-nanoworlds are also discussed, including: (1) comprehension of phenomena that dictate very small object (< 500 micrometers) behavior; and (2) design of intuitive 3-D manipulation systems. Design guidelines to realize an intuitive haptic feedback teleoperation system at the micro-nanoscale level are proposed

Magnification-continuous static calibration model of a scanning-electron microscope.

International audienceWe present a new calibration model of both static distortion and projection for a scanning-electron microscope (SEM). The proposed calibration model depends continuously on the magnification factor. State-of-the-art methods have proposed models to solve the static distortion and projection model but for a discrete set of low and high magnifications: at low magnifications, existing models assume static distortion and perspective projection. At high magnifications, existing models assume an orthogonal projection without presence of static distortion. However, a magnification-continuous model which defines continuous switch from low to high magnifications has not yet been proposed. We propose a magnification-continuous static calibration model of the SEM. The static distortion and intrinsics of the projection matrix are modeled by partial differential equations (PDEs) with respect to magnification. The approach is applied with success to the JEOL-JSM 820 in a secondary electron imaging mode for magnification ranging from 100× to 10k×. The final RMS reprojection error is about 0.9 pixels. This result together with two application-based experiments: the consistent measurements of the bending of a cantilever and a 3-D reconstruction of a nano-ball emphasize the relevance of the proposed approach

Study on Magnetic Control Systems of Micro-Robots

Magnetic control systems of micro-robots have recently blossomed as one of the most thrilling areas in the field of medical treatment. For the sake of learning how to apply relevant technologies in medical services, we systematically review pioneering works published in the past and divide magnetic control systems into three categories: stationary electromagnet control systems, permanent magnet control systems and mobile electromagnet control systems. Based on this, we ulteriorly analyze and illustrate their respective strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, aiming at surmounting the instability of magnetic control system, we utilize SolidWorks2020 software to partially modify the SAMM system to make its final overall thickness attain 111 mm, which is capable to control and observe the motion of the micro-robot under the microscope system in an even better fashion. Ultimately, we emphasize the challenges and open problems that urgently need to be settled, and summarize the direction of development in this field, which plays a momentous role in the wide and safe application of magnetic control systems of micro-robots in clinic

Microclamping principles from the perspective of micrometrology – A review

This paper gives an overview of the field of clamping and gripping principles from the viewpoint of sample fixturing for dimensional metrology for microobjects. The requirements for clamping microcomponents that allow dimensional measurements are therefore explained before principles and solutions of microclamps as found in literature are reviewed and evaluated on basis of these requirements. Results show that there is no single superior clamping principle or method of implementation but rather several effective solutions for specific applications. The core value of this paper is the link between requirements for sample fixturing in dimensional micrometrology and the many approaches already investigated in the field of microclamping. A radar chart and a decision tree summarize and visualize the major aspects of this review. Finally, directions of future key research areas are suggested

International Workshop on MicroFactories (IWMF 2012): 17th-20th June 2012 Tampere Hall Tampere, Finland

This Workshop provides a forum for researchers and practitioners in industry working on the diverse issues of micro and desktop factories, as well as technologies and processes applicable for micro and desktop factories. Micro and desktop factories decrease the need of factory floor space, and reduce energy consumption and improve material and resource utilization thus strongly supporting the new sustainable manufacturing paradigm. They can be seen also as a proper solution to point-of-need manufacturing of customized and personalized products near the point of need

Design and implementation of rotational degrees of freedom into microrobotics platform

The strength of the individual paper fiber bonds (IPFB) is the key parameter which determines the mechanical quality of paper hand sheets. Currently, most of the strength measurements are still done on hand-sheet level because of the absence of high throughput IPFB strength measurement tools. Micro and Nanosystems research group of Tampere University of Technology recognized the demand for an IPFB characterization system and built a microrobotics platform. However, the current configuration of the platform is not able to rotate the microgripper which limits the measurements such as Z-directional bond breaking and shear mode bond breaking. Moreover, this configuration is not capable of dealing with twisted fibers. This thesis addresses these problems and introduces addition of two more degrees of rotation to the current platform. This modification of microrobotic platform will enable the bond strength measurement of IPFBs in desired pure modes which will enhance the paper fiber scientist`s understanding of IPFBs breaking process. Bond strength measurement with the current platform provides data that is a combination of normal and shear forces which is not desired. After the modifications provided by this thesis, the microrobotic platform will be able to separate the shear force and the normal force during shear mode bond breaking. In the Z-directional bond strength measurement, it is essential to know which fiber is on the top whereas the platform does not fulfill this requirement. The rotation of the microgripper and thus, the fibers will reveal the orientation of the IPFBs. Moreover, the rotation of the microgripper enables the user to untwist the twisted fibers by rotating from one end while the other end is fixed with another microgripper. Forward kinematics of the modified system is calculated through Matlab and compared with the real system. The errors between the ideal system and real system are reduced significantly by modifying the parameters in the overall transformation matrix which ensures that the modified microrobotic platform is now capable of solving all three problems discussed above. Maximum errors are decreased 90.65% (from 107 micrometers to 10 micrometers) at the X-axis, 82.47% (from 97 micrometers to 17 micrometers) at the Y-axis and 87.17% (from 195 micrometers to 25 micrometers) at the Z-axis

Vision Based Automatic Calibration of Microrobotic System

During the last decade, the advancement of microrobotics has provided a powerful tool for micromanipulation in various fields including living cell manipulation, MEMS/MOEMS assembly, and micro-/nanoscale material characterization. Several dexterous micromanipulation systems have been developed and demonstrated. Nowadays, the research on micromanipulation has shifted the scope from the conceptual system development to the industrial applications. Consequently, the future development of this field lies on the industrial applicability of systems that aims to convert the micromanipulation technique to the mass manufacturing process. In order to achieve this goal, the automatic microrobotic system, as the core in the process chain, plays a significant role. This thesis focuses on the calibration procedure of the positioning control, which is one of the fundamental issues during the automatic microrobotic system development. A novel vision based procedure for three dimensional (3D) calibrations of micromanipulators is proposed. Two major issues in the proposed calibration approach - vision system calibration and manipulator kinematic calibration - are investigated in details in this thesis. For the stereo vision measurement system, the calibration principle and algorithm are presented. Additionally, the manipulator kinematic calibration is carried out in four steps: kinematic modeling, data acquisition, parameter estimation, and compensation implementation. The procedures are presented with two typical models: the matrix model and the polynomial model. Finally, verification and evaluation experiments are conducted on the microrobotic fiber characterization platform in the Micro- and Nano Systems Research Group (MST) at Tampere University of Technology. The results demonstrate that the proposed calibration models are able to reduce the prediction error below 2.59 micrometers. With those models, the pose error, compensated by the feed-forward compensator, can be reduced to be smaller than 5 µm. The proposed approach also demonstrates the feasibility in calibrating the decoupled motions, by reducing the undesired movement from 28 µm to 8 µm (For 4800 µm desired movement)