Micromanipulation and Micro-Assembly Systems.

Abstract

International audienceThe needs to manipulate micrometer sized objects keeps growing and concerns numerous and various fields like microsystems (MEMS1 and MOEMS2), micromechanics, optics, biology or pharmacy. The specificities of size, material, geometry and consistency of manipulated micro-objects, their surrounding, the kind of task to perform and the free size are all the more specific parameters that strongly influence the design and working of micromanipulation and micro-assembly systems. These systems are widely developing because they correspond both to industrial needs and really challenging scientific problematics. For these reasons, the present paper aimed at dealing with a review that mainly focuses on systems recently developed to assemble small series of microcomponents. The paper especially points out different solutions of carriers structures, gripping principles, sensors, other peri-microrobotic systems and control systems presenting the main solution and justifying their use and interest