Micro and Meso Scale Robotic Assembly

Some of the challenges associated with micro systems assembly are examined in this paper, and illustrated with examples of on-going research at the authors’ institution. One of the basic challenges in precision assembly is the need for very high accuracy over a large range of motion. We address this challenge through a “multiscale” approach. This involves the design of assembly tools and processes at multiple scales, and their integration into coherent system architectures. Parallelism is an important aspect of this architecture, with the goal of enabling high throughput, fault tolerant assembly at moderate cost. The modularity of the architecture is also important, given the need to frequently reconfigure microsystems assembly cells for small batch production. In this paper, we present several concepts for the development of multiscale robotic tools for the assembly of microsystems. Numerical simulations and experimental results are used to illustrate the relevance of the proposed approaches. Extensions to manipulation at the nanoscale are briefly discussed. We conclude with some guidelines for the design of multiscale assembly systems.