Robotic Micro-Assembly

Citation

Imam Cahyadi, A. (2012), "Robotic Micro-Assembly", Assembly Automation, Vol. 32 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.2012.03332caa.008

Robotic Micro-Assembly

Article Type: Book review From: Assembly Automation, Volume 32, Issue 3

Michael Gauthier and Stephane Regnier,Wiley-IEEE Press,October 2010,US$122,328 pp.,ISBN: 978-0-470-48417-3,Web Link: www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470484179.html

Although the book is merely a collection of standalone works, the editors have made their best efforts to make the story flow as naturally as possible. For these reasons, the book is divided into three parts: Modeling of the Microworld, Handling Strategies, and Robotics Microassembly, which represent, respectively, the theoretical part, the tool design part, and the industrial application part. If one’s intention is to read a book with concise treatments of the physics of micromanipulation, handling strategies and microassembly, then this is the correct choice.

The book starts with the modelling of the microworld from the classical approaches to the recent developments, either for vacuum and gaseous environments in Chapter 1, or the interactions with liquid and solid environment as studied in Chapter 2. These chapters play a crucial role in designing a robotics systems for microassembly with its special physics of interaction. However, the models mostly use statistical parameters; thus the interconnection with the robotics design becomes difficult.

In the next section, the connection from the previous section is made for designing a tool to manipulate the object in the microscale in either the general or specific sense. Case studies with experiments make for a better understanding about the real situation in designing the handling, such as: a demonstration on the handling strategies in Chapter 3, how to achieve precise manipulation in Chapter 4, and microhandling strategies and microassembly in submerged medium in Chapter 5. However, this section has somewhat no direct relationship with the theoretical arguments developed in the previous section. For instance, the strategy for submerged medium in Chapter 5 did not at all consider the physical issue in liquid environment developed in Chapter 2.

This book is finalized with robotic microassembly and examples of the use of robotic systems for microfabrication and micromanipulation. Presented in this section are: three designs of robot systems for 3D MEMS structure (Chapter 6), applications of 19 DOF manipulators for achieving the so-called High-yield aspects (Chapter 7), and the design of microassembly machines for microsolder ball manipulation (Chapter 8). Again, there are missing links to the previous chapters, especially the absence of the interaction analysis presented in the first section.

In my opinion, this book serves more as a collection of recent theories and developments in robotics microassembly by the recognized experts in this area, rather than as a complete guidance. As the chapters talk in their own style using different perspectives and approaches without direct relationships among them, the reader can directly jump to the chapter she or he is interested in. Although the works presented in each chapter are excellent, there is a lack of, or maybe no analysis on, the control aspects as well as the physics of the actuators.

Adha Imam CahyadiCentre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia