Microassembly Following the Desktop Factory Concept

Investigation and strategies for precision of miniaturized robots with micro gears

“…The main prospects that make miniaturized robots for desktop factories very promising are the following ones:high density of functionality;operation in a local clean room cell;increased accuracy;improved dynamic properties;lower initial, manufacturing and maintenance costs; andincreased flexibility.These prospects and in particular, the increased flexibility by using miniaturized robots have already been discussed in other articles of the authors (Burisch et al , 2007, 2011).…”

“…Nowadays, there are also a few examples in Europe of research and industry projects, such as the miniaturized robot Pocket Delta (Codourey et al , 2006), the robot Parvus (Burisch et al , 2007; Ellwood et al , 2011) described below, miniaturized environments such as factory cells (Sitala et al , 2010) or handling devices for nano objects from Klocke Nanotechnik GmbH (Klocke, 2001). A more detailed discussion of the state of the art for precision robots and desktop factories can be found in previous articles of the authors (Burisch et al , 2007, 2011).…”

“…The example scenario of picking a ruby sphere out of a channel and moving the end‐effector accurately along this channel (without collision) (Figure 1(c)) shows that a precise path of the robot can also be very important in micro assembly. This scenario, shown in Figure 2 occurred during an assembly process of a micro probe (Burisch et al , 2011) and demonstrated that the robot path has to be considered not only for machining processes (such as milling or drilling) but also for pick‐and‐place applications. In this case, the path accuracy (EN ISO 9283, 1998) of the robot has to be measured as quality criterion for such applications.…”