Flexible piezoelectric micromanipulation robots for a microassembly desktop station

The design of a microassembly desktop station is a major challenge for microsystem technology. This paper presents several piezoelectric micromanipulation robots, which have been developed to be used in a microassembly station. These robots are of different design and use different actuation principles so that each robot serves for a specific task. They are capable of travelling over long distances and of manipulating in the range of a few nanometers. Several robots of this kind can be accommodated in a microassembly station and can cooperate and perform microassembly tasks as a team. They can also be used for other operations such as online testing of microelectronic chips or manipulating biological cells.