An automated assembly system for a microassembly station

Abstract

The production of complex microsystems from a number of microcomponents made of different materials requires flexible, precise mechanisms, which can finely manipulate different types of objects. The microassembly has its specifics caused by the tiny dimensions of the robots, high accuracy and complicated vision and control systems required. This paper presents a concept of an intelligent microassembly planning system. This system has been implemented in a micromanipulation station with mobile piezoelectric microrobots, which has been developed at the Institute for Process Control and Robotics (IPR) at the University of Karlsruhe [S. Fatikow, U. Rembold, An automated microrobot-based desktop station for micro assembly and handling of microobjects, ETFA IEEE conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, Kauai Marriott, Kauai, Hawaii, November 18–21 1996, pp. 586–592; S. Fatikow, R. Munassypov, An intelligent micromanipulation cell for industrial and biomedical applications based on piezoelectric microrobot, Proc. Of the 5th Int. Conference on Micro Electro, Opto, Mechanical Systems and Components (MSTU96), Berlin, September 17–19 1996, pp. 826–828]. This research considers the assembly system as a complex system and represents a microassembly environment for the microassembly station. The information flow, interacting and functioning of separate parts of the micromanipulation station are determined and the integration of the assembly subsystem into the station are presented. The principal approaches for each part of the system are given.