Parallel microassembly with a robotic manipulation system

This paper proposes a methodology to assemble multiple micro-components simultaneously with a robotic manipulator using a parallel assembly method. Through manipulating and assembling the micro-components, intricate, out-of-plane, three-dimensional micro-devices can now be fabricated. Use of a parallel microassembly process rather that a serial approach can significantly increase the productivity and reduce the cost of assembling micro-devices. The parallel microassembly operation proposed in this work was developed and implemented on a 6-DOF robot manipulator to attain considerable manufacturing flexibility. In this study, three passive microgrippers were bonded in parallel to the end-effector of the manipulator. Three microparts were then grasped by the grippers from the worktable of the manipulator, rotated 90?, and assembled onto the base substrate simultaneously. During the parallel microassembly operation, the visual image may not be able to monitor all three gripper-part pairs simultaneously due to the limited field of view of the microscope. Through the use of an alignment-calibration algorithm with only one gripper-part set, the remaining two sets were successfully manipulated and inserted onto the desired assembly location.