Interval force/position modeling and control of a microgripper composed of two collaborative piezoelectric actuators and its automation

This paper deals with the modeling and control of a microgripper devoted to micromanipulation and microassembly applications and tasks. Based on two collaborative piezoelectric actuators, the microgripper is typified by a high sensitivity to the environment, in particular a high sensitivity to the properties of the manipulated objects. This sensitivity makes the behavior of the microgripper variable and uncertain versus the environment and consequently makes the tasks lose performances. A possible way to overstep that problem is to model the microgripper behavior and its dependency with the environment as perfect as possible and then calculate a controller from this. However, such model is complex to handle and the yielded controllers are often very complex for implementation. In this paper, we propose to use interval models to describe the behavior of the piezoelectric actuators that compose the microgripper. Then a controllers synthesis consisting in combining interval techniques and classical control theory is proposed. Both the position and the force raised in the microgripper are considered. The main advantages of the proposed technique are: 1) ease and natural way to model the uncertainties, 2) the robustness of the synthesized controllers, 3) and the derivation of low order controllers that are easier for implementation relative to those of classical robust control techniques. Finally, the paper presents the application of the controlled microgripper to an automated pick-transport-and-place task of micro-objects. This automated task demonstrates the efficiency of the control technique in micromanipulation and microassembly applications.