NRI: FND: Light-Powered Microrobots for Future Microfactories

Introduction

In this project, we study microrobots powered by light in two schemes: Type R (or remotely powered by a laser beam) and Type E (or by light energy scavenging and storage). Some of the key research challenges are: 1) Optimizing microrobot designs to efficiently transform incident optical energy into useful motion commands to achieve controlled locomotion by differential resonance and differential thermal expansion of actuators 2) Investigate the optimal roughness of the dry surface 3) Adaptive controller development with real-time location tracking, laser parameter synchronization with the movement of multi-dimensional stages in order to guide a microrobot from one point to another 4) Cooperatively manipulate objects with multiple microrobots.

With these two demonstrators, there are two research aims being pursued:

  • Aim 1: Model the response of actuators with respect to the temporal variables of an incident light beam on different materials and ambient environments. Select light variables, such as wavelength, pulse width, and frequency to obtain the best differentiation between motion responses. Determine optimal geometries and placement of actuators for efficient power utilization, maneuverability and precision.
  • Aim 2: Formulate motion-predictive control and adaptive impedance control algorithms based on selective actuator responses and use them to send wireless maneuver and haptic commands to microrobots. Formulate robust path planning algorithms for microrobots through learning. Formulate new haptic teleoperation algorithms for operator immersion and cooperative pushing in the environment.

Activities

  • Design, FEA simulation, & actuator response analysis of two types of remote-powered, MEMS based microrobots.
  • Cleanroom fabrication, and micro-assembly.
  • Parametric investigation of laser parameters i.e. power, spot size, pulse width & frequency on the locomotion of the microrobots.
  • Study the effect of surface roughness of media on locomotion of the microrobots
  • Developing opto-thermo-mechanical models of microrobots.
  • Formulate motion-predictive control and adaptive impedance control algorithm based on selective actuator responses.
  • Developing laser scanner-based instrument to actuate multiple robots simultaneously.
  • Synchronized control and learning of multiple robots on dry surface.
  • Designing portable microrobot demonstrator.

People

Sri Sukanta Chowdhury (Postdoctoral associate): Team leader, supervising overall activities, optical set-up, experimentation

Moath Hasan Atallah Alqatamin (Postdoctoral associate): Controller design and implementation

Andriy Sherehiy (Postdoctoral associate): Experimentation and optical set-up

Ruoshi Zhang (Postdoctoral associate): SolerPede design and experiments

Zhong Yang (PhD student): FEA simulation, controller design, microfabrication

Danming Wei (PhD student): microassembly and assembly station design, assist in LabVIEW programming

Patrick Clapacs (undergrad student): simulation & microassembly

Mariah B Hall (undergrad student, past contributor): Microassembly

Media

ChevBot

An assembled ChevBot showing different parts along with its dimensions.

NeXus microassembly station

NeXus microassembly station. S1-S3 represents stacked stages and C1-C3 shows the cameras.

List of Papers

  1. ChevBot–An Untethered Microrobot Powered by Laser for Microfactory Applications
  2. R Zhang, A Sherehiy, Z Yang, D Wei, CK Harnett, DO Popa
  3. 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 231-236
  4. Multiphysics dynamic model validation methodology for laser-driven microrobots
  5. Z Yang, MN Saadatzi, R Zhang, A Sherehiy, D Wei, CK Harnett, DO Popal
  6. 2019 IEEE 15th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE)
  7. Concept Validation for a Novel Stick-and-Slip, Light-Powered, Mobile Micro-Crawler
  8. JF Klotz, D Wei, Z Yang, R Zhang, A Sherehiy, MN Saadatzi, DO Popa
  9. 2019 International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS)
  10. Design, analysis and fabrication of sAFAM, a 4 DoF assembled microrobot
  11. R Zhang, D Wei, DO Popa
  12. 2018 International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS)
  13. Design and characterization of solid articulated four axes microrobot for microfactory applications
  14. R Zhang, A Sherehiy, D Wei, DO Popa
  15. Journal of Micro-Bio Robotics 15 (2), 119-131
  16. Tracking Experiments with ChevBot: A Laser-Actuated Stick-Slip Microrobot
  17. R Zhang, A Sherehiy, D Wei, Z Yang, MN Saadatzi, DO Popa
  18. 2019 International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS)
  19. Design, Fabrication and Experimental Validation of a Steerable, Laser-Driven Microrobot in Dry Environments
  20. Z Yang, A Sherehiy, SS Chowdhury, D Wei, R Zhang, DO Popa
  21. 2020 IEEE 16th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE)
  22. SolarPede: a stick-and-slip, light-powered, Mobile micro-crawler
  23. R Zhang, JF Klotz, D Wei, Z Yang, A Sherehiy, MN Saadatzi, DO Popa
  24. Journal of Micro-Bio Robotics 16 (1), 1-12
  25. Parametric Investigation of Laser-Driven Microrobot Maneuvrability on Dry Substrates
  26. SS Chowdhury, Z Yang, A Sherehiy, D Wei, R Zhang, DO Popa
  27. 2020 International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS)