FEMTO-ST-Franche Comté Electronique Mécanique Thermique et Optique - Sciences et Technologies
From basic research to industrial partnership
Microassembly robotic device
Microassembly robotic device
Since ten years, the department AS2M (Automation and MicroMechatronical systems) of the Femto-ST Institute has developed a large knowledge about microworld and built many micromechatronical systems to handle and assemble microsystems. In the last few years, many efforts on integration lead SAMMI (Automated Systems for Microhandling and Microassembly) team to design and build two micro-assembly robotic systems. These devices are compact, accurate and agile robots which allow the handling of micro-objects whose typical size is between 10 µm and 1 mm. Microassembly robotic device open the way to assemble microsystems and MEMS with micronic and submicronic accuracy.
Microassembly robotic systems developed in our lab are functional prototypes whose show their capacities in teleoperated microassembly (i.e. controlled by a human operator). These devices handle mechanical, optical and MEMS microcomponents. Today, research effort is made on two main axis: downscale micro-object handling to reach the nanoworld and make the automatization of the microassembly tasks as far as possible.
Platform SAMMI
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This device is the main prototype of the research team. It enables assembly of microcomponents whose size is between 100 µm and few millimeters.
The robot is composed of 5 high accuracy axis (3 linear axis and 2 rotational axis) carrying a MMOC microgripper. This microgripper was design in our laboratory and patented in 2002. This robotic device is associated to a vision device, which is a motorized binocular microscope. A environmental control is ensured by dust filtration (class 100). Robot is controlled by two computers, one for operator inputs (joystick, keyboard) and the other for real-time video stream. Video is used by both operator and computer for manual control and computer vision control.
As well as technical demonstrator and experimental platform, this microassembly robotic system is used to experiment research work made on microassembly.
Large view of the platform SAMMI. The robot is fixed on a vibration filtering table and protected by an laminar flow cabinet. Computers and joystick are visible on the right.
Large view of the assembly area. A 400 µm wide component is handled by the MMOC microgripper visible on the center.
PRONOMIA microassembly robotic device
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This device was designed and built during the 3 years long PRONOMIA project (funded by the ANR, French national research funding agency). It enables assembly of microcomponents whose size is between 10 µm and few hundreds of micrometers in both dry and liquid media.
The robot is composed of 6 high accuracy axis (3 linear axis and 6 rotational axis) carrying a MMOC microgripper. As liquid medium is requiring inverted microscope, the robotic device was especially build to fit this vision system. A environmental control is ensured by dust filtration (class 100). Robot is controlled by two computers, one for operator inputs (joystick, keyboard) and the other for real-time video stream. Video is used by both operator and computer for manual control and computer vision control.
As the PRONOMIA project ends in half 2009, the device is used to support research in micro-object handling and assembly in liquid medium by using innovative process (dielectrophoresis, surface functionalization, ice grippers, etc.)
Close view of the robot and the MMOC microgripper
Assembly sequence of two silicon microcomponents of 40x40x5 µm3 on the PRONOMIA prototype.
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