Haptic Remote Control Interface for Robotic Micro-Assembly at Low Frequency

Microassembly of submillimetric objects is still a manual process in most industries. Manufacture of MOEMS (Micro-Optical-Electrical-Mechanical System) based sensors, or watchmaking and even micro-surgery relies very heavily on the motor skills of an operator handling specialized tools. We propose here a preliminary work on bilateral coupling between a macro-tweezers and a micro-tweezers using a user interface for a microrobotic system which ambitions to combine the precision of the robot with the expertise of the craftsman. It strives to hide the scale-change between the microcomponents and the user’s workbench, by providing a scaled-up tabletop image of the robot’s sample-holder, co-located with a hand-held tool. This active tweezers mimics the traditional tool in form and function, albeit augmented with feedback. Its motions are tracked to drive the microgripper. Users may hence directly pick-up a micro-object from the image, while feeling the grasp of the microgripper on their fingers.