A microrobot-based automated micromanipulation station forassembly of microsystemsSergej Fatikow Mirko BenzAbstract：The development of new types of miniaturized and microrobots with human-like capabilities play an important role in different application tasks. One of the main problem of present-day research is, for example, to assemble a whole microsystem from different microcomponents.This paper presents an automated micromanipulation desktop station including a piezoelectrically driven microrobot placed on the highly-precise xy stage of a light microscope, a CCD-camera as a local sensor subsystem, a laser sensor unit as a global sensor subsystem, and a Pentium PC equipped additionally with an optical grabber. The microrobot has three piezoelectrically driven legs and two autonomous manipulators as endeffectors; it can perform highly-precise manipulations （with an accuracy of up to 10 nm） and a nondestructive transport （at a speed of several mm/s） of very small objects under a microscope. To perform manipulations automatically, a control system, including a task planning level and a real-time execution level, is being developed. （C）1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.Keywords： Microrobots; Microassembly; Automated desktop station; Assembly planning; Piezoactuators1.Introduction：There is a growing need for miniaturized and microrobots worldwide. Due to the enormous breakthroughs in conventional robotics and in the microsystem technology (MST),everyone is convinced that the development of remote-controlled or autonomous microrobots will lead to improvements in many areas. Above all, positive results are expected in medicine (microsurgery),manufacturing (microassembly, inspection and maintenance), biology (manipulation of cells) and testing/measuring technique (VLSI) . Medicine is one of the application fields which would profit by the microrobotics the most. The attention lies on artificial organs (prosthetics) , laparoscopy, implantable drug delivery systems (diagnosis and therapy systems) , telemicrosurgery, etc. The minimal-invasive surgery developed into an important field of medicine during the last years.Smaller and more flexible active endoscopes are needed in order to replace human hands, respond to outer incidents, penetrate into a body or a vessel through natural bodily orifice or a small incision by remote control, where they perform complex in-situ measurements and manipulations. In order to meet these requirements, microprocessors, several sensors and actuators, a light source and possibly an image processing unit should be integrated into an intelligentendoscope. Biotechnology requires special microstructured active tools which are able to perform micromanipulations like the sorting or reunion of cells or the injection of a foreign body into a cell under a microscope. In the gene research and the environment technique （cells as indicators for harmful substances）, precise and gentle manipulation of single cells are also required. Industry and especially manufacturing and measuring techniques need highly sensitive testing methods in the m-range. An important task represents, for example, the inspection of wafers, where several check points have to be contacted by a temperature or voltage probe. The same is valid for inspection robots which are used in inaccessible or dangerous terrain in order to detect leaks or flaws and make repairs （e.g., in pipelines）。The adoption of MST-related developments by the industry has already demonstrated which kind of problems occur with the mass production of microsystems. These systems usually consist of microcomponents of different materials which are produced with various microtechniques; this leads to one or several very precise assembly step （s）of theindividual components. The assembly of microsystems, i.e., the non-destructible transport, precise manipulation or exact positioning of microcomponents is becoming one of the most important applications in microrobotics.2. Manipulation of microobjects：The availability of highly precise assembly processes will make it easier to economically realize operable microsystems. In order to efficiently produce microsystems and components in lot sizes or by mass-production techniques, it is absolutely necessary to introduce flexible, automated, precise and fast microassembly stations. Different concepts are being followed to do micromanipulation for particularclasses of application.Purely manual micromanipulation is the most often used method today. In medicine and biological research, it is used exclusively. Even in industry, microassembly tasks are very often carried out by specially trained technicians, who, for example, preposition assembly parts using screws and springs, then position the parts with tiny hammers and tweezers, and finally fasten them in the desired position. However, with increasing component miniaturization, the tolerances become smaller and smaller, and the c