8. Micro-manipulation
Two-fingered hand for micro-manipulation
Dual slave manipulator with micro-force control
Dexterous micro-hands are promising for assembling micro-machines, manipulating biological cells, and micro-surgery. A prototype two-fingered micro hand has been developed which takes ideas from the way chopsticks are used. The hand has two layers of parallel mechanisms, each with six degrees of freedom. The lower layer provides global motion of the two fingers, and the upper layer relative motion of one finger with respect to the other - for example,the motion to open and close the fingers. By using this mechanism, coordinated motion of the two fingers to manipulate micro objects can be achieved simply, without the necessary for complicated control algorithms. The mechanism is capable of manipulating a glass ball 2ƒÊm in diameter to an accuracy of 0.1 ƒÊm.
Special technologies such as force control on a micro-scale are required in order to assemble the components of micro-machines. The feasibility of using tele-operation technology to make a human operator 'feel' the forces of the micro-world in a natural way is under investigation.
Back to Advanced Machinery
Back to Main Theme
Back to Home Page
