The KIT swiss knife gripper for disassembly tasks: a multi-functional gripper for bimanual manipulation with a single arm

© 20xx IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.This work presents the concept of a robotic gripper designed for the disassembly of electromechanical devices that comprises several innovative ideas. Novel concepts include the ability to interchange built-in tools without the need to grasp them, the ability to reposition grasped objects in-hand, the capability of performing classic dual arm manipulation within the gripper and the utilization of classic industrial robotic arms kinematics within a robotic gripper. We analyze state of the art grippers and robotic hands designed for dexterous in-hand manipulation and extract common characteristics and weak points. The presented concept is obtained from the task requirements for disassembly of electromechanical devices and it is then evaluated for general purpose grasping, in-hand manipulation and operations with tools. We further present the CAD design for a first prototype.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Printing Embedded Circuits

Automated manufacturing technologies such as freeform fabrication can greatly reduce the cost and complexity of infrastructure required to manufacture unique devices or invent new technologies. Multi-material freeform fabrication processes under development have the potential to automatically build complete functional devices including electronics. Making this technology available to creative individuals will revolutionize art and invention, but requires extensive simplification and cost reduction of what is still a laboratory technology. The combination of a Fab@Home Model 1 personal fabrication system and commercially available materials allows the demonstration of simple and inexpensive freeform fabrication of functional embedded electrical circuits, and useful devices. Using this approach, we have been able to demonstrate an LED flashlight, functional printed circuit boards in 2-dimensions and 3- dimensions that are actually entirely printed, and a child’s toy with embedded circuitry. These results, and the materials and methods involved in producing them will be presented in detail.Mechanical Engineerin

Potential up-scaling of inkjet-printed devices for logical circuits in flexible electronics

Inkjet Technology is often mis-believed to be a deposition/patterning technology which is not meant for high fabrication throughput in the field of printed and flexible electronics. In this work, we report on the 1) printing, 2) fabrication yield and 3) characterization of exemplary simple devices e.g. capacitors, organic transistors etc. which are the basic building blocks for logical circuits. For this purpose, printing is performed first with a Proof of concept Inkjet printing system Dimatix Material Printer 2831 (DMP 2831) using 10 pL small print-heads and then with Dimatix Material Printer 3000 (DMP 3000) using 35 pL industrial print-heads (from Fujifilm Dimatix). Printing at DMP 3000 using industrial print-heads (in Sheet-to-sheet) paves the path towards industrialization which can be defined by printing in Roll-to-Roll format using industrial print-heads. This pavement can be termed as "Bridging Platform". This transfer to "Bridging Platform" from 10 pL small print-heads to 35 pL industrial print-heads help the inkjet-printed devices to evolve on the basis of functionality and also in form of up-scaled quantities. The high printed quantities and yield of inkjet-printed devices justify the deposition reliability and potential to print circuits. This reliability is very much desired when it comes to printing of circuits e.g. inverters, ring oscillator and any other planned complex logical circuits which require devices e.g. organic transistors which needs to get connected in different staged levels. Also, the up-scaled inkjet-printed devices are characterized and they reflect a domain under which they can work to their optimal status. This status is much wanted for predicting the real device functionality and integration of them into a planned circuit

Fabrication of Flexible Hybrid Circuits in Parylene

In recent years, with the increasing research interest in personalized medicine, new and disruptive technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and flexible wearable electronics have emerged and have become trending topics in the scientific community. Despite consistent progress in the area of fully flexible electronics, these continue to reveal some restrictions, which can be overcome by traditional silicon integrated circuits (ICs). The combination between these technologies generated the new concept of flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) igniting a new generation of wearable health monitoring systems. This thesis reports a new way to the use parylene C as substrate, dielectric and encap- sulation layers to accommodate silicon ICs, surface mounted devices (SMDs) and thin metal layers, in order to create flexible and conformable double layered hybrid sensing membranes for body temperature monitoring, one of the most relevant physiological pa- rameters upon a medical diagnosis, since it’s among the main indicators for inflammation and infection. To achieve the thin metal and parylene C layers, thin-film microfabrica- tion techniques were employed and corroborated by superficial, electrical and structural characterization techniques. In addition the establishment of an electrical connection by the integration of silicon ICs and SMDs onto the thin metal layer was successfully tested using a low-temperature solder paste and a reflow oven, which reproduced a previously inputted time-temperature profile. Furthermore, this thesis analyses the repercussions of this integration procedure on the peel off process. Throughout this work, commercial body temperature measuring circuits were used as inspiration for the temperature sensing circuits developed. The interface between the produced membranes and their respective microcontrollers was also tested, although no temperature measurements were obtained due to parylene’s performance as a dielectric. The successful production of a fully functional flexible and conformable double layered hybrid sensing membrane could propel the adaptation of other rigid health monitoring electronics to FHE membranes, further engraving this technology into people’s daily lives.Com o crescente interesse na pesquisa em medicina personalizada, novas tecnologias como a Internet of Things (IoT) e a eletrónica flexível, surgiram e tornaram-se tópicos de tendência na comunidade científica. Apesar dos progressos na área da eletrónica totalmente flexível, continuam a existir algumas restrições, que podem ser superadas pelos circuitos integrados de silício (ICs) tradicionais. A junção entre estas tecnologias gerou um novo conceito de eletrónica híbrida flexível (FHE) dando início a uma nova geração de sistemas de monitorização de saúde. Esta tese aborda uma forma inovadora de usar parileno C como substrato, dielétrico e camada de encapsulamento para acomodar ICs de silício, surface mounted devices (SMDs) e camadas metálicas finas, a fim de criar circuitos em membranas híbridas de dupla camada flexíveis e conformáveis para monitorização da temperatura corporal, um dos parâmetros fisiológicos com maior relevância aquando do diagnóstico, uma vez que é um dos principais indicadores de infeções e inflamações. Para obter as camadas finas de metal e parileno C, foram empregues técnicas de microfabricação de filmes finos, corroboradas por caracterizações superficiais, elétricas e estruturais. Utilizando uma pasta de solda de baixa temperatura e um forno de refluxo, reproduzindo um perfil de tempo-temperatura, foi desenvolvido um protocolo para a conexão e integração de ICs na fina camada de metal. São ainda apresentados resultados relativos às implicações deste processo no método do peel off. Os circuitos desenvolvidos durante esta tese tiveram por base circuitos comerciais que medem a temperamtura corporal. Apesar da interface entre as membranas produzidas e os seus respetivos microcontroladores ter sido testada, não foi possível medir a temperatura com os circuitos desenvolvidos devido à performance do parileno como dielétrico. A produção bem-sucedida de uma membrana híbrida de dupla camada, flexível e conformável, totalmente funcional pode impulsionar a adaptação de outros equipamentos rígidos de monitorização de saúde para membranas híbridas flexíveis, inserindo ainda mais esta tecnologia na vida quotidiana

GSFC Annual Scan Technology Review SpaceCube On-Board Processor Update

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Department of Energy Engineering (Battery Science and Technology)The continuous throng in demand for high energy density rechargeable batteries innovatively drives technological development in cell design as well as electrochemically active materials. In that perspective metal-free batteries consisting of a flowing seawater as a cathode active material were introduced. However, the electrochemical performance of the seawater battery was restrained by NASICON (Na3Zr2Si2PO12) ceramic solid electrolyte. Here, we demonstrate a new class of fibrous nanomat hard-carbon (FNHC) anode/1D (one-dimensional) bucky paper (1DBP) cathode hybrid electrode architecture in seawater battery based on 1D building block-interweaved hetero-nanomat frameworks. Differently from conventional slurry-cast electrodes, exquisitely designed hybrid hetero-nanomat electrodes are fabricated through concurrent dual electrospraying and electrospinning for the anode, vacuum-assisted infiltration for the cathode. HC nanoparticles are closely embedded in the spatially reinforced polymeric nanofiber/CNT hetero-nanomat skeletons that play a crucial role in constructing 3D-bicontinuous ion/electron transport pathways and allow to eliminate heavy metallic aluminum foil current collectors. Eventually the FNHC/1DBP seawater full cell, driven by aforementioned physicochemical uniqueness, shows exceptional improvement in electrochemical performance (Energy density = 693 Wh kg-1), (Power density = 3341 W kg-1) removing strong stereotype of ceramic solid electrolyte, which beyond those achievable with innovative next generation battery technologies.ope