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Robotic manipulation platforms and instruments

The Robotic Instruments Group develops, maintains, and reconfigures custom robotic manipulation platforms, instrument modules, and research setups for physical and system-level robotics. These platforms support experiments in microscale manipulation, field-mediated manipulation, environment-mediated robotics, soft-material handling, biological specimen manipulation, and robotic scientific instrumentation.

Many of the systems below are custom-built or modular platforms developed through earlier EU and national research projects. They are reconfigured as needed for new experiments rather than maintained only as fixed-purpose instruments. They combine precision motion, visual feedback, force sensing, programmable physical fields, and modular end-effectors to create robotic capabilities that are not available from standard commercial equipment.

• Microgripper station

  The microgripper station is an established platform architecture for manipulating and assembling microscale parts. It typically includes a 3-DOF miniaturized precision mobile platform with a normal workspace of 20 mm × 200 mm × 15 mm and submicron precision, configurable up to 300 mm × 300 mm × 300 mm. One or two piezo-based microgrippers can be mounted, with adjustable jaw opening from 0 to 3 mm, an active range of 1 mm, nanometer resolution, and a 15 mm z-axis motion range. The system can be extended modularly with additional end-effectors and devices, including mechanical, vacuum, and capillary grippers, needles, liquid dispensers, UV sources, lasers, force sensors, electrodes, and probes. A vision system with two to four cameras is typically used for workspace observation and visual feedback. The platform has supported three EU projects and multiple national projects, and has been adapted for tasks such as manipulating and assembling microchips, microforce probes, optoelectronic components, and soft components.

• Airflow-mediated robotic manipulation setups

  The airflow-mediated robotic manipulation setup can deliver a controlled air jet in desired directions using a custom-built gimbal unit. The nozzle of the setup can be exchanged to create jets with different velocity profiles. A top-view camera observes the manipulation workspace (up to 3 meters) for automatic and intelligent control. The airflow-mediated robotic manipulation setup can manipulate a variety of objects, including tree leaves, cotton wands, face masks, and plastic bags, as well as tethered and untethered robotic agents over two meters away. Several varieties of flow generators are available, including a 3x3 fan array that creates a largely coherent flow field with a controllable flow gradient. 

• Robotic electromagnetic needles

  The robotic electromagnetic needle system has two independent needles, each with a 3 DoF nanopositioning system (workspace 12 mm x 12 mm x 12 mm, nanometer resolution), and an electromagnetic needle with a tip as sharp as 2 microns in radius. The sharp tip allows the device to create a steep magnetic field gradient, and hence a large force on small magnetic objects not achievable with conventional coil configurations. The robotic electromagnetic needles are compatible with an inverted optical microscope for manipulating biological specimens and cells. However, the device can operate on other specimens or with other vision systems as well.

• Silk and gel threading station

  The silk and gel threading station can dispense and thread natural silk or artificial gel matter automatically. One special function of the system is that it can control the force at high resolution during threading or solidification of the gel, achieving a high degree of control of the threading process that cannot be found with normal pressure or velocity-regulated threading systems. The station has been demonstrated to be a useful tool for studying fiber threading with biomaterial researchers.

• Ferrofluidic manipulator

  The ferrofluidic manipulator uses the air-liquid interface as a programmable manipulation medium. It contactlessly deforms the liquid surface through magnetic interaction between eight solenoids and a magnetic liquid. This highly programmable liquid surface can manipulate any objects floating on the liquid surface, including electronic components, biological seeds, and oil and gel droplets, whereas those objects can be made of non-magnetic materials. Alternatively, this device can also manipulate magnetic particles floating on the liquid surface.

• Acoustic surface-mediated manipulation system

  The acoustic surface-mediated manipulation system moves objects on a plate by generating a programmable acoustic force field on the surface of the plate. The acoustic field can be generated by altering the frequency of the actuator under the plate, for example, according to musical notes. Using vision feedback and a model of the acoustic force field, a properly designed algorithm can manipulate single objects, multiple particles, and a swarm of objects, both in the air or underwater.

• Single-fiber contact angle measurement instrument

  The single-fiber contact angle measurement instrument can measure the contact angle of a single soft fiber. This is a rather unique capability, where the contact angle of a soft fiber is measured by combining vision-based imaging and model data from finite-element analysis. 

• 9-DOF nanorobotic platform

  This is our teaching platform, including two 3 DoF translational nanopositioners (workspace 6 mm x 6 mm x 6 mm, nanometer resolution), one mobile platform with two translational DoFs (6 mm x 6 mm), and one rotational DoF (360-degree continuous). Usually, a microgripper has been mounted on one of the two 3 DoF positioners, and another end-effector (e.g., needle, dispenser) can be mounted on the other positioner.

Software environment

• Most of the mobile platform and the end-effectors are controlled using our home-built modular AutomationBase software, which supports easy programming of the devices using Python scripts.

Supporting microscopy, imaging, and measurement equipment

• Microscopes

  Nikon Eclipse Ti2 

  Zeiss Axioscope 5

  Lyncee tec DHM

  Zeiss Axio Vert. A1

  Numerous tube microscopes

• High-speed imaging

  Phantom V2012

  Phantom Miro LC310

• Other measurement instruments

  Biolin Scientific Theta Lite

  Dantec Dynamics 55P16 HWA

Numerous electromagnetic and piezoelectric motorized stages, micro/nano force sensors, micro/nano displacement sensors, contact and noncontact droplet dispensers, linear and power amplifiers, DAQ devices, video cameras, etc.