Position control with parameter adaptation for a nano-robotic cell

This paper describes the development of a nano-assembly system, built up using linear piezo motors. The so-called nano-robotic cell is based on an X/Y manipulator, supported by three serving tables, movable within a Z axis, and aposition controlled using two different types of a bang-bang control methods. The presented application has been developed as a stand-alone application with the LabVIEW Real Time software package, a PCI-7356 servo controller card and a TMCM-090 stepper driver. Our experiments focused on two major problems present during the construction of nano-robotic assembly cells. The first one is a nonlinear characteristic of a linear piezo motor, which makes the use of classical control methods very limited. The second problem appears when a nano-robotic cell needs a bigger working space and at the same time, production demands that the manipulator moves more often over longer distances. In order to position in nano-resolution, the motors have to run at higher resolutions with smaller speeds. Therefore, long distance moves slow down the entire production process. Experiments on this system have shown that positioning within the nano-scale is possible, using a simple control method such as the bang-bang control method. Although positioning using this method is possible, certain limitations and weaknesses exists, making this simple method useless in nano-scale if higher speeds and longer move distances are needed. Certain changes in the basic control algorithm are proposed, which will ensure that the bangbang control method becomes useful within higher speeds and over longer distances. All recommendations are supported and backed- up by practical experimental results