Automated micromanipulation desktop-station based on mobile piezoelectric microrobots

One of the main problem of present-day research on microsystem technology (MST) is to assemble a whole microsystem from different microcomponents. This paper presents a new concept of an automated micromanipulation desktop-station including piezoelectrically driven microrobots placed on the a high-precise x-y-stage of a light microscope, a CCD-camera as a local sensor subsystem, a laser sensor unit as a global sensor subsystem, a parallel computer system with C167 microcontrollers, and a Pentium PC equipped additionally with an optical grabber. The microrobots can perform high-precise manipulations (with an accuracy of up to 10 nm) and a non destructive transport (at a speed of about 3 cm/sec) of very small objects under the microscope. To control the desktop-station automatically, an advanced control system that includes a task planning level and a real-time execution level is being developed. The main function of the risk planning sub-system is to interpret the implicit action plan and to generate a sequence of explicit operations which are sent to the execution le vel of the control system. The main functions of the execution control level are the object recognition, image processing and feedback position control of the microrobot anti the microscope stage.