DESKTOP MICRO DRILLING AND ASSEMBLING SYSTEM BY MICROROBOTS -Combination of Global and Local Positioning System-

摘要

This paper describes the development of unique automatic micro drilling and assembling system performed by piezo driven microrobots. The microrobots, which composed of piezo elements and electromagnets, can move accurately with the manner of inchworm on the steel surface. And these robots are equipped with the micro tools to allow various micro works with the flexible layout on the desktop. In this system, the sequential control procedure and the coordination system in local area are so important to decide both the productivity and the reliability. In order to identify the relative distance of small robots each other in the local area, we are proposing the simple technique that the PSD mounted on the small robot can gauge the position of the LED on another small robot. Then we can navigate one of many tiny robots to the specified point based on the coordination signal acquired from the position sensitive device. This arrangement can allow the low cost local positioning system without such expensive vision based coordination instruments although the sensible range is limited within the PSD size. In the primary experiment, we checked that the relative position detecting performance of the combination with the PSD and LED had the measuring accuracy of 30 um in the range of 4 mm square. And the automatic precise navigation between two small robots was carried out and successfully the final positioning was achieved within the tolerance of 60 um.