Manipulation and dynamic mechanical testing of microscopic objects using a tele-micro-robot system

Abstract

A microrobot having two high-performance parallel drive limbs which has been developed for manipulation, surgery, and dynamic mechanical testing of very small objects such as single living cells is described. The end points of each limb move in overlapping spherical workspaces of 1-mm diameter with minimum open- and closed-loop movements of 1 nm and 10 nm, respectively. The displacement bandwidth of all six microrobot axes exceeds 1 kHz for small displacements. A three-dimensional laser vision system with a resolution of 50 to 100 nm has been developed to provide the microrobot with volume images containing magnitude, phase, polarization, and spectral information. A macro version of the microrobot has been built to permit force-reflecting teleoperation of the microrobot. The telemicrorobot system permits both microscopic objects and continuum models to be felt. A high-performance parallel computer has been designed, and partially constructed, to meet the substantial computational and control requirements of the telemicrorobot system.