A new multi-scale micromanipulation system with dexterous motion

Abstract

Micro robotics is a significant area to be able to manipulate micro level objects dexterously. Until now, various micro manipulation systems have been presented. In micro environment, different kinds of objects have different dimensions. Some of them are a few micrometers (µm) such as donor cells, some of them are more than a hundred µm such as egg cells. At this point, a manipulator which has multi-scale manipulation ability can manipulate different size objects. Otherwise, for different diameter objects, different micro-hands are necessary. Furthermore, when we want to manipulate micro objects, manipulation distance is not always same. Because, with micro hand, we do not just want to grasp or rotate the objects, sometimes we could also want to carry the object from one micro environment to another one. Therefore, workspace of micro manipulator is also important for various micro tasks. In this paper, we propose a new micro manipulation system which includes parallel mechanism for grasping and releasing tasks. This new system has ability of multi-scale manipulation, which means manipulation of different size objects with same micro hand. Moreover, short distance (nm) and long distances carriage (mm) are feasible with this micro manipulator.