Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The proposed equipment consists of a micromanipulator with probes, a camera, a force feedback device, a haptic device, a router, data acquisition cards, and auxiliary software. The proposed equipment will be integrated with the applicant's existing equipment to provide a vision-based autonomous micromanipulation facility with teleoperation capability, a state-of-the-art and versatile experimental facility for researchers at Ryerson and, even, other universities. The facility will be primarily used to support research programs focusing on testing new image-based inspection, manipulation, and teleopration methods for objects in micro-scale. With the rapid growth of micro-technology, autonomous micromanipulation becomes an emerging interest in inspecting, constructing and assembling micro-objects in large volume such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) products and biological elements.    The following topics will be tackled in the aforementioned research programs using the proposed experimental facility: (1) performance analysis of vision-based control methods and development of a robust visual servo-control system with a hybrid force-vision control strategy for micromanipulation of objects in micro-scale; (2) development of an Internet-based telerobotic control and guidance system with force-reflective visual servo-control for tele-micromanipulation; and (3) design, inspection, and test of micro-structures, micro-electronic components, microscopic biological structures, and MEMS products.      In addition to the applicant and co-applicants, graduate and senior undergraduate students will use this facility to learn emerging vision-based MEMS technology and experiments by developing micro-scale inspection and assembly techniques. Furthermore, the developed facility could be used for fabricating templates and prototyping micro-devices. This new facility will further expand Ryerson's research and education in multi-disciplinary areas, focusing on emerging opportunities at the interfaces between mechanical, electrical, and biomedical engineering.