An automated assembly system for a microassembly station

The production of complex microsystems from a number of microcomponents mad e of different materials requires flexible, precise mechanisms, which can f inely manipulate different types of objects. The microassembly has its spec ifics caused by the tiny dimensions of the robots, high accuracy and compli cated vision and control systems required. This paper presents a concept of an intelligent microassembly planning system. This system has been impleme nted in a micromanipulation station with mobile piezoelectric microrobots, which has been developed at the Institute for Process Control and Robotics (IPR) at the University of Karlsruhe [S. Fatikow, U. Rembold, An automated microrobot-based desktop station for micro assembly and handling of microob jects, ETFA IEEE conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation , Kauai Marriott, Kauai, Hawaii, November 18-21 1996, pp. 586-592; S. Fatik ow, R. Munassypov, An intelligent micromanipulation cell for industrial and biomedical applications based on piezoelectric microrobot, Proc. Of the 5t h Int. Conference on Micro Electro, Opto, Mechanical Systems and Components (MSTU96), Berlin, September 17-19 1996, pp. 826-828]. This research consid ers the assembly system as a complex system and represents a microassembly environment for the microassembly station. The information flow, interactin g and functioning of separate parts of the micromanipulation station are de termined and the integration of the assembly subsystem into the station are presented. The principal approaches for each part of the system are given. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.