A sequence of micro-assembly for irregular objects based on a multiple manipulator platform

Abstract

Difficulties arise in the micro-assembly of many irregular objects and in the insertion with contact between components of soft materials. To handle these problems, we design a micro-operational platform with multiple manipulators to facilitate a sequence of assembly. Six robot arms and three microscopes are incorporated, together with macro and micro motion systems. We also propose a hybrid control strategy to achieve high precision and protect objects. This hybrid scheme includes vision based positioning controllers for alignment, which employ incremental PI controllers and image Jacobian matrix, force based controllers for insertion, and a decision mechanism determining the assembly state. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed platform and control methods.