Collaborative Agile Miniaturized Robotics for ultra-precise assembly – COLAMIR

To address the challenges of micromanipulation and industrial micro-assembly, the COLAMIR project enabled the study and implementation of a collaborative robotic or cobotic approach thanks to the complementarity between the two academic partners (FEMTO-ST and ISIR) and the two industrial partners (Percipio Robotics and Auréa Technology). The implemented approach is based first of all on the integration of sensors to measure the microforces induced during the manipulation of micro-objects. Haptic interfaces with very low inertia and very low friction were also proposed, allowing the operator to feel these very low but also very influential forces during an assembly process. These new capabilities made it possible to provide a tactile “sense” to the operator. The implementation of different dynamic collaborative control modes as well as the possibility of switching from one to another according to the stages of the assembly process and the expert opinion of the human operator, also allows the operator via the robot, to carry out micro-assembly tasks with very high precision (up to 10 nanometers). Finally, the different functionalities were implemented via several demonstrators including an industrial one, and made it possible to demonstrate that the human-robot synergy is particularly effective in the context of industrial micro-assembly.

From a technical point of view, the COLAMIR project made it possible to implement for the first time collaborative human-robot control modes in an industrial micro-assembly context. The work made it possible to improve many production factors (cycle time, precision, task quality) but also operator comfort, making their work more diversified and attractive. COLAMIR induced several other collaborative projects (Dynabot, ANR Optobot, EUR Microfibre, EUR Smartdigibot), an innovation program funded by BPI («French PRecision«) contributing to the creation of the Micro and Nanorobotics Center, as well as to establishing the place of microrobotics within the TIRREX network. The project also led to technology transfer (maturation of microforce sensors in progress) and the establishment of several new international (USA, Kenya) and national (Thalès, CEA List, INRAE) collaborations.

COLAMIR opens up very broad perspectives more broadly, both in terms of promoting the innovative technological solutions developed during the project and will also contribute to the deployment of collaborative robotics by having proposed a set of collaborative control modes allowing a paradigm shift in human-robot collaboration by putting them into synergy in a unique, particularly effective and accepted way.

André, A.; Lehmann, O.; Govilas, J.; Laurent, G.; Saadana, H.; et al. Automating Robotic Micro-Assembly of Fluidic Chips and Single Fiber Compression Tests Based on $XY\Theta$ Visual Measurement With High-Precision Fiducial Markers. IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. 2022, 1-14.

Tiwari, B.; Clevy, C.; Lutz, P. High Precision Gluing Tasks Based on Thick-Films of Glue and a Microrobotics Approach. Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). 2019, 4(4), 4370-4377.

Tiwari, B.; Billot, M.; Clévy, C.; Agnus, J.; Piat, E.; Lutz, P. A Two-Axis Piezoresistive Force Sensing Tool for Microgripping. Sensors, 21(18), 6059, September 2021.

Awde, M.; Boudaoud, M.; Macioce, S.; Régnier, S.; Clévy, C. A Micro-Robotic Approach For the Intuitive Assembly of Industrial Electro-Optical Sensors Based on Closed-Loop Light Feeling. Submitted. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. 2022, 1-10.

As long as industrial robots took place in factories for their flexibility regarding to dedicated heavy machinery, great achievements were done in productivity and costs effectiveness. In our days, low level of robot equipment in France, especially in SMEs, must call out robotic community on the technical lockup we are facing at. Micro technology manufacturing, and especially micro assembly, is a perfect field to understand and tackle these issues: high precision handwork with small complex parts requires both manual abilities and analysis capabilities to deal with. Actual robots are flexible and accurate but they are clearly not enough smart for microscale purpose, and miniaturization is now limited by human operator’s physical limits. Collaborative robotics is an emerging response, where both robot and human best capabilities are merged to pass through the miniaturization limits and to get a productivity improvement.
COLAMIR project tackles the merging issue of human and robot capabilities in the field of micro manufacturing. The project consortium combines leaders in the field of robotic micro manipulation and micro manufacturing innovative SMEs. Microrobotics group at ISIR is a well-known research team in the field of human robot interaction at the microscale, with a strong research novelty in the field of haptic interface (e.g. ERC Proof Of Concept in 2015). The FEMTO-ST institute has a long and fruitful research feedback on tweezer for robotic micromanipulation, and a strong involvement in sensors integration and control at the microscale. PERCIPIO ROBOTICS is a startup company successfully working since 5 years in the field of high precision robotics for micro manufacturing with strong customer references in the field. AUREA TECHNOLOGY is a young company, all over the world well-known for their ultra-precise photon counter, using an innovative hand-assembled micro photonic device. Concrete industrial micro-assembly cases will be brought in order to develop and integrate a new brand collaborative robotic.
To deal with tweezers manipulation issues widely spread in micro manufacturing assembly, collaborative robotics will be developed in COLAMIR through scientific and technologic devices and software. Micro manipulation will be strongly improved by building a new micro tactile sense thanks to designed multi degrees of freedom force sensors, specific control scheme and an innovative mechatronics haptic interface. Human robot collaboration will also be strongly facilitated by dedicated software interfaces and high level switching control scheme. Operators testing this new approach on concrete industrial cases are one of the strength of COLAMIR. The main COLAMIR objective is to show to operators and SMEs entrepreneurs that the collaborative robotics is the key to improve the robots equipment in micro manufacturing SMEs. The ground breaking path opened by COLAMIR should be used in a wide range of manufacturing fields where flexibility is a clear asset but where robotization is still a challenge for many SMEs.