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Force measurement, Robotics, Interface management
Abstract
Miniaturised nanohandling microrobots are used to handle objects of less than 100 µm size with accuracy down to several nanometres. Operating a nanohandling robot in the microworld and nanoworld presents challenges not found in the macroworld. To allow a good manipulability, we propose a teleoperation system, which is based on the innovative approach of haptic-based model-oriented teleoperation of nanohandling robots. The newly developed haptic interface for a microrobot cell is used in the proposed teleoperation system for the teleoperation of the industrial nanohandling robot. This paper presents the scanning electron microscope based nanohandling station that uses the proposed haptic-based model-oriented teleoperation approach. Further, we discuss the integration of a force microsensor into the teleoperation interface. The first experiments and theoretical research show that the proposed approach can improve haptic-based teleoperation of nanohandling robots.
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1. Introduction
Miniaturised nanohandling robots, or microrobots, are the result of research at the border between microsystem technology and robotics. Nanohandling robots are robots with the dimension of several cubic inches, which can handle different microobjects with an accuracy up to several nanometres.
At present, the direct continuous teleoperation approach is used for the teleoperation of nanohandling robots by haptic devices (Kim et al., 2001; Sato et al., 1995; Sitti et al., 2001). However, the direct continuous teleoperation approach has several disadvantages.
(1) If big constant or varying time delays exist in the haptic-nanohandling robot control loop, the teleoperation of the nanohandling robot can become unstable. Solutions were found how to stabilise the system with a constant time delay (Anderson and Spong, 1989; Niemeyer and Slotine, 1991). Stability of systems with a varying time delay is currently actively researched.
(2) The principle of motion of many nanohandling robots, which utilise piezo-electric actuators, is based on the slip-stick principle (Breguet et al., 1996). Speed of motion of such nanohandling robots reaches tens of millimetres per second. To be able to manipulate microobjects at a high speed, the nanohandling robot should react within several microseconds to an event in the microworld. A time delay in the nanohandling robot control...