Flexible automation of micro and meso-scale manipulation tasks with applications to manufacturing & biotechnology

There are many challenges in robotics that need to be addressed in order to solve the meso, micro, and nano-scale manipulation and assembly problems that are becoming more and more important today. Traditionally, solutions for precision assembly have been highly customized and accomplished at the expense of system cost and complexity. More expensive sensors and actuators are used that drive up cost and reduce throughput. However, at smaller scales, often times sensors are either complex and expensive or non-existent. Furthermore, there is a lack of good contact interaction models at these scales making model-based approaches to control difficult. The work presented here investigates ways to solve these new manipulation and assembly challenges at these small scales. The contributions include the following: First, a novel, flexible automation system for micro and meso-scale manipulation tasks has been designed and implementation. Second, the development of a methodology for meso-scale manipulation tasks along with experimental validation of this methodology has been realized. The third contribution is the design, fabrication, and testing of a novel, two-dimensional, μN level force sensing device. Finally, the last contribution is the application of flexible automation technologies for increased biotechnology process throughput, analysis, and automation and performance of single-cell manipulations for characterization studies