A Review of Haptic Feedback Teleoperation Systems for Micromanipulation and Microassembly

Abstract

Abstract-This paper presents a review of the major haptic feedback teleoperation systems for micromanipulation. During the last decade, the handling of micrometer-sized objects has become a critical issue. Fields of application from material science to electronics demonstrate an urgent need for intuitive and flexible manipulation systems able to deal with small-scale industrial projects and assembly tasks. Two main approaches have been considered: fully automated tasks and manual operation. The first one require fully pre determined tasks, while the later necessitates highly trained operators. To overcome these issues the use of haptic feedback teleoperation where the user manipulates the tool through a joystick whilst feeling a force feedback, appears to be a promising solution as it allows high intuitiveness and flexibility. Major advances have been achieved during this last decade, starting with systems that enable the operator to feel the substrate topology, to the current state-of-the-art where 3D haptic feedback is provided to aid manipulation tasks. This paper details the major achievements and the solutions that have been developed to propose 3D haptic feedback for tools that often lack 3D force measurements. The use of virtual reality to enhance the immersion is also addressed. The strategies developed provide haptic feedback teleoperation systems with a high degree of assistance and for a wide range of micromanipulation tools. Based on this expertise on haptic for micromanipulation and virtual reality assistance it is now possible to propose microassembly systems for objects as small as 1 to 10 micrometers. This is a mature field and will benefit small-scale industrial projects where precision and flexibility in microassembly are required.Note to Practitioners-This paper is motivated by the urgent need of intuitive and flexible manipulation systems able to deal with assembly tasks on the microscale. A new and promising solution is presented here; teleoperation with force feedback, where an operator uses a joystick to control the tool at the microscale, while experiencing interaction forces between the tool and the environment. Feedback assistance to the user using attractive and repulsive force fields is also be proposed to help achieve the assembly task. Examples are given in this paper to illustrate this approach. The presented techniques can be readily applied to most micromanipulation systems to perform advanced microassembly tasks.

Haptic and visual augmented reality interface for programming welding robots

“…In Rosenberg's work [9], virtual fixtures are overlaid on a workspace as guiding forces that are transmitted to a remote operator via haptic feedback. This approach has since been adopted in robotic surgery [10], micro-scale teleoperation systems [11], maintenance [12] and assembly [13]. Haptic feedback, as an additional perception channel to visual feedback, can provide users with a better spatial understanding of the surfaces and edges of a workpiece.…”

Recent advances in nanorobotic manipulation inside scanning electron microscopes

“…Therefore, feedforward-and feedback-controlled nanopositioning were attempted for higher bandwidth and higher accuracy 30 . To achieve nanoscaled manipulation and assembly tasks, control approaches have been developed for tele-operated and automated nanomanipulation 49,123,124 . In tele-operated nanomanipulation, haptic and visual feedback are usually acquired and presented to a human operator.…”

Haptic Feedback for Microrobotics Applications: A Review

“…The cantilever deflection due to the interaction between the tip and the surface gives information about the mechanical properties of the environment (Binnig et al, 1986). One of the first examples of haptic-enabled microrobotic system employed a scanning tunneling microscope coupled with a 6-degrees-offreedom (6-DoF) haptic interface (Hollis et al, 1990;Bolopion and Régnier, 2013). The vertical movement of the haptic device end-effector replicates one of the microscope tip, so that users can feel the topology of the environment.…”

“…The field of microrobotics has been progressing fast since the last decade, and its applications have shown promising results in several robotic tasks at the microscale, such as controlled positioning (Solovev et al, 2009;Woods and Constandinou, 2011;Khalil et al, 2014a,b), pick up and delivery of objects, cells, and molecules (Solovev et al, 2010;Balasubramanian et al, 2011;Sanchez et al, 2011; For reasons of responsibility, safety, and public acceptance, it is beneficial to provide a human operator with intuitive and effective means for directly controlling these microrobots (Troccaz and Delnondedieu, 1996;Jakopec et al, 2003;Bolopion and Régnier, 2013). In this condition, the operator should receive enough information about the controlled microrobot and the remote environment.…”