Forced-Controlled Nanomanipulation Utilizing Nano-Robotic Manipulator and Nanomechanical Cantilever

Abstract

This paper presents forced-controlled nanomanipulation utilizing nano-robotic manipulator and nanomechanical cantilever. A three degree of freedom (3 DOF) nanomanipulator with revolute revolute prismatic (RRP) actuator structure, named here MM3A®, can be utilized for a variety of nanomanipulation tasks. Previous publications of the authors present the mathematical modeling and robust control of manipulator’s tip using fused visual servoing and force sensor feedbacks. Due to lack of position and velocity feedbacks in MM3A® nanomanipulator, a fused vision/force feedback robust controller has been recently designed by the authors. Previous publications of the authors present the optimal utilization of the visual servoing and force sensor feedbacks for use in the nanomanipulation tasks. More specifically, the visual servoing and force feedback structures are investigated through extensive simulations in order to reveal issues in practical implementation. In modeling the force sensing module of the designed fused feedback controller, previous publications of the authors present a closed-form distributed-parameters based modeling framework for piezoresistive Nanomechanical Cantilever (NMC)-based force sensors used in a variety of cantilever-based nanomanipulation actions. Current modeling practices call for a simple lumped-parameters framework rather than modeling the piezoresistive NMC itself. Due to the widespread applications of such NMCs in nanoscale force sensing or non-contact atomic force microscopy with nano-Newton to pico-Newton force measurement requirements, precise modeling of the piezoresistive microcantilevers is essential. Instead of the previously used lumped-parameters modeling, a distributed-parameters modeling framework is proposed and developed in previous publications of the authors to arrive at the most complete model of the piezoresistive NMC including tip-mass, tip-force and base movement considerations. Here, experimental results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed distributed-parameters model when compared with the previously reported lumped-parameters modeling approach. It is shown that by utilizing the distributed-parameters model rather than lumped-parameters approach and by predicting the exact motion of each point on the NMC, the precision of the piezoresistive NMC’s model is significantly enhanced. Such novel modeling framework could pave the pathway towards nanomechanical cantilever-based manipulation and positioning as detailed in the second part.