Smart-power integrated circuits to drive piezoelectric actuators for a cm<sup>3</sup>microrobot system

Puig-Vidal, M.; Lopez-Sanchez, J.; Miribel-Català, Pere Ll.; Montane, E.; Bota, S.A.; Samitier, J.; Simu, Urban; Johansson, Stefan

doi:10.1117/12.436628

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Figure 12 show an assembled positioning unit carrying six ASICs on a PCB and a FPC connecting the 24 separate phases and earth from the PCB with the positioning unit. Using a joystick-based control unit which communicates with the ASICs serially, direction of movement of the ASICs (xmovement, y-movement or rotation) and speed is transformed into the proper waveforms and frequencies to the stator phases [15]. Preliminary experiments have shown that the positioning unit is able to move a precision gauge block in any desired directions and at different speeds.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A reduction in the layer thickness reduces the yield as well and a reasonable compromise is to choose 40 µm as the target value. An application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) has been designed to control four of the 24 phases in a stator unit [15]. This integrated circuit contains four voltage power drivers and a digital control system with a fast serial interface protocol.…”

Section: Microrobot Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fabrication of monolithic piezoelectric drive units for a miniature robot

Simu

Johansson

2002

J. Micromech. Microeng.

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In this paper, we present the design and assembly of a miniature robot, with a size of a few cm 3 , which should be able to move freely over distances in the centimetre range performing high precision manipulating operations on micrometre-sized objects with a precision in the nanometre range. The final robot will carry an application specific integrated circuit containing power drivers and a digital control system with a fast serial interface protocol. Two six-legged monolithic piezoelectric drive units generate the motion. Each leg is a three-axial multilayer piezoceramic enabling a five-axial manipulation operation. The fabrication of the drive units is described in detail. The multilayer structures are fabricated with wet building and screen printing. The green material is machined to single components using a high precision CNC micromilling machine. The motion capacity of the legs has been evaluated and major limitations restraining the motion capacity and further miniaturization have been identified. Firstly, the patterning of the internal electrodes should be improved, but also the milling operation has to be considered.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Microrobot Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fabrication of monolithic piezoelectric drive units for a miniature robot

Simu

Johansson

2002

J. Micromech. Microeng.

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“…The Sandia national lab developed an autonomous tractor-microrobot for either civil or military applications (Byrne, R. H., et al, 2001;Siegel, M., 2001). Some research institutes in Europe Union cooperated to design a microrobot system 'MiniMan' for micromanipulation (Puig-Vidal, et al, 2001). EPFL developed an autonomous microrobot 'Alice' for both scientific and commercial applications (Caprari, G., et al, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wheels Optimization and Vision Control of Omni-directional Mobile Microrobot

Chen

2008

International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

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This paper presents a millimeters scale omni-directional mobile microrobot with special dual-wheel structure. The microrobot was actuated by three electromagnetic micromotors of 2mm diameter. Dynamic analysis of translational and steering movements presented the relationship between the sizes of the dual-wheel structure and the output torque of the micromotor. Genetic algorithm (GA) was employed to optimize the dualwheel's sizes for reducing the unnecessary torque consumption and improving the driving ability of the microrobot. A computer vision system contained two sets of feedback control is devised for the microrobot. Torque self-balance and current-limiting control approach are presented to ensure the accuracy of step movement. Experiment results demonstrate the feasibility of these concepts.

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