Author(s): Requicha, Ari | Abstract: Nanorobotics encompasses the design, fabrication, and programming of robots with overall dimensions below a few micrometers, and the programmable assembly of nanoscale objects. Nanorobots are quintessential nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) and raise all the important issues that must be addressed in NEMS design: sensing, actuation, control, communications, power, and interfacing across spatial scales and between the organic/inorganic and biotic/abiotic realms. Nanorobots are expected to have revolutionary applications in such areas as environmental monitoring and health care.This paper begins by discussing nanorobot construction, which is still at an embryonic stage. The emphasis is on nanomachines, an area which has seen a spate of rapid progress over the last few years. Nanoactuators will be essential components of future NEMS.The paper's focus then changes to nanoassembly by manipulation with scanning probe microscopes (SPMs), which is a relatively well established process for prototyping nanosystems. Prototyping of nanodevices and systems is important for design validation, parameter optimization and sensitivity studies. Nanomanipulation also has applications in repair and modification of nanostructures built by other means. High-throughput SPM manipulation may be achieved by using multitip arrays.Experimental results are presented which show that interactive SPM manipulation can be used to accurately and reliably position molecular-sized components. These can then be linked by chemical or physical means to form subassemblies, which in turn can be further manipulated. Applications in building wires, single-electron transistors, and nanowaveguides are presented.

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Nanorobots, NEMS, and Nanoassembly

A deep learning approach combining instance and semantic segmentation to identify diseases and pests of coffee leaves from in-field images

This article presents the design, analysis, and prototype test of a novel spatial deployable three-degree of freedom (DOF) compliant nano-positioner with a three-stage motion amplification mechanism (MAM). Inspired by deployable structures, a new design concept, namely monolithically spatial compliant mechanism (MSCM) is proposed to minimize the overall structure. Based on MSCM, a folding operation is employed uniquely by arranging three typical kinds of basic MAM modules with two sets of hooke joints. Due to the spatial structure, the dimensions in horizontal plane is reduced by 60.94%. Furthermore, the proposed nano-positioner demonstrates the simultaneous design of large-ratio amplification mechanism, compact, highly flexible, and assembly-free spatial XY platform with integrated Z platform. Analytical modeling is carried out, and finite element analysis is conducted to optimize the geometric parameters. A prototype is fabricated to verify the performances of the nano-positioner through tests. Experimental results demonstrate that the maximum displacements in $x$ -, $y$ -, and $z$ -axes can reach 177.33, 179.30, and 17.45  $\mu$ m, respectively. The motion amplification ratios in the $x$ - and $y$ -axes can reach 10.19 and 10.30, respectively. Moreover, by adopting proportional-integral-derivative feedback controller, the closed-loop control experiments are conducted. The results show that the motion resolution in three axes can all reach 5 nm. As the MSCM has been verified to be feasible and favorable, it can be anticipated that the design concept will contribute to the multiformity and development of compliant mechanisms.

A Spatial Deployable Three-DOF Compliant Nano-Positioner With a Three-Stage Motion Amplification Mechanism

High-precision positioning is an essential requirement for sample operation at a small scale. At the current stage, although nanometer-scale accuracy has been achieved for the linear positioning, the rotational positioning (attitude control) is still very challenging and rarely addressed. This paper presents a rotatable nanorobotic system with rotational degrees of freedom first. Then, the system error, i.e., nonaxisymmetrical eccentricity error of the mechanism, is investigated dynamically and its fault model is established. After that, a double-loop servo repetitive controller is accordingly designed based on the circle interpolation strategy. The theoretical analysis and experimental results verify that the rotational positioning accuracy can be controlled up to submicrometers stably, which improves at least one order of magnitude than the current static method. Finally, two application cases are given to highlight the significance of this approach, i.e., surface defect detection from $\text{360}^{\circ }$ and in situ twisting characterization of 1-D micro/nanomaterial. This research paves a new avenue for the ultrahigh rotational positioning at microscopy environment, which is expected to generate a long-term impact on the micro/nanofields, such as microscopy imaging, material characterization, and so on.

Ultrahigh-Precision Rotational Positioning Under a Microscope: Nanorobotic System, Modeling, Control, and Applications

A linear piezoelectric actuator based on the stick-slip principle is presented and tested in this paper. With the help of changeable vertical preload force flexure hinge, the designed linear actuator can achieve both large travel stick-slip motion and high-resolution stepping displacement. The developed actuator mainly consists of a bridge-type flexure hinge mechanism, a compound parallelogram flexure hinge mechanism, and two piezoelectric stacks. The mechanical structure and motion principle of the linear actuator were illustrated, and the finite element method (FEM) is adopted. An optimal parametric study of the flexure hinge is performed by a finite element analysis-based response surface methodology. In order to investigate the actuator’s working performance, a prototype was manufactured and a series of experiments were carried out. The results indicate that the maximum motion speed is about 3.27 mm/s and the minimum stepping displacement is 0.29 μm. Finally, a vibration test was carried out to obtain the first natural frequency of the actuator, and an in situ observation was conducted to investigate actuator’s stick-slip working condition. The experimental results confirm the feasibility of the proposed actuator, and the motion speed and displacement are both improved compared with the traditional stick-slip motion actuator.

Design and Experimental Research of a Novel Stick-Slip Type Piezoelectric Actuator

This paper presents a triple-finger gripper driven by a piezoceramic (PZT) transducer for multi-target micromanipulation. The gripper consists of three fingers assembled on adjustable pedestals with flexible hinges for a large adjustable range. Each finger has a PZT actuator, an amplifying structure, and a changeable end effector. The moving trajectories of single and double fingers were calculated and finite element analyses were performed to verify the reliability of the structures. In the gripping experiment, various end effectors of the fingers such as tungsten probes and fibers were tested, and different micro-objects such as glass hollow spheres and iron spheres with diameters ranging from 10 to 800 μm were picked and released. The output resolution is 145 nm/V, and the driven displacement range of the gripper is 43.4 μm. The PZT actuated triple-finger gripper has superior adaptability, high efficiency, and a low cost.

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/8/2/33/pdf

A PZT Actuated Triple-Finger Gripper for Multi-Target Micromanipulation.

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) have been developed in recent decades for nanodevices such as nanoradios, nanogenerators, carbon nanotube field effect transistors (CNTFETs) and so on, indicating that the application of CNTs for nanoscale electronics may play a key role in the development of nanotechnology. Nanorobotics manipulation systems are a promising method for nanodevice construction and assembly. For the purpose of constructing three-dimensional CNTFETs, a nanorobotics manipulation system with 16 DOFs was developed for nanomanipulation of nanometer-scale objects inside the specimen chamber of a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Nanorobotics manipulators are assembled into four units with four DOFs (X-Y-Z-θ) individually. The rotational one is actuated by a picomotor. That means a manipulator has four DOFs including three linear motions in the X, Y, Z directions and a 360-degree rotational one (X-Y-Z-θ stage, θ is along the direction rotating with X or Y axis). Manipulators are actuated by picomotors with better than 30 nm linear resolution and <1 micro-rad rotary resolution. Four vertically installed AFM cantilevers (the axis of the cantilever tip is vertical to the axis of electronic beam of SEM) served as the end-effectors to facilitate the real-time observation of the operations. A series of kinematic derivations of these four manipulators based on the Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) notation were established. The common working space of the end-effectors is 2.78 mm by 4.39 mm by 6 mm. The manipulation strategy and vision feedback control for multi-manipulators operating inside the SEM chamber were been discussed. Finally, application of the designed nanorobotics manipulation system by successfully testing of the pickup-and-place manipulation of an individual CNT onto four probes was described. The experimental results have shown that carbon nanotubes can be successfully picked up with this nanorobotics manipulation system.

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/16/9/1479/pdf

Mechatronic Development and Vision Feedback Control of a Nanorobotics Manipulation System inside SEM for Nanodevice Assembly.

A method of picking up carbon nanotubes (CNTs) from nanotube bulk by van der Waals force inside a scanning electron microscopy is presented. An atomic force microscope cantilever was employed as end effector of nanorobotics manipulators for CNT picking up. A manipulation strategy was established by analysing the van der Waals force of three different types of contacting models. Three groups of experiments were designed and carried out to investigate the effects of different factors. Factors including pickup angle, pickup contact area between the CNT and the cantilever and pickup speed of the end effector were discussed. The results shown that a pickup angle at 90.1° and a pickup speed lower than 10 nm/step with a pickup contact length more than 1.5 µm would increase the probability of picking up CNT successfully.

https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1049/mnl.2016.0287

Carbon nanotubes pickup by van der Waals force based on nanorobotics manipulation inside SEM

Nano-positioning technology has been widely used in many fields, such as microelectronics, optical engineering, and micro manufacturing. This paper presents a one-dimensional (1D) nano-positioning system, adopting a piezoelectric ceramic (PZT) actuator and a multi-objective topological optimal structure. The combination of a nano-positioning stage and a feedback capacitive comb sensor has been achieved. In order to obtain better performance, a wedge-shaped structure is used to apply the precise pre-tension for the piezoelectric ceramics. Through finite element analysis and experimental verification, better static performance and smaller kinetic coupling are achieved. The output displacement of the system achieves a long-stroke of up to 14.7 μm and high-resolution of less than 3 nm. It provides a flexible and efficient way in the design and optimization of the nano-positioning system.

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Topologically Optimized Nano-Positioning Stage Integrating with a Capacitive Comb Sensor.

The maneuvering and electrical characterization of nanotubes inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM) has historically been time-consuming and laborious for operators. Before the development of automated nanomanipulation-enabled techniques for the performance of pick-and-place and characterization of nanoobjects, these functions were still incomplete and largely operated manually. In this paper, a dual-probe nanomanipulation system vision-based feedback was demonstrated to automatically perform 3D nanomanipulation tasks, to investigate the electrical characterization of nanotubes. The XY-position of Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) cantilevers and individual carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were precisely recognized via a series of image processing operations. A coarse-to-fine positioning strategy in the Z-direction was applied through the combination of the sharpness-based depth estimation method and the contact-detection method. The use of nanorobotic magnification-regulated speed aided in improving working efficiency and reliability. Additionally, we proposed automated alignment of manipulator axes by visual tracking the movement trajectory of the end effector. The experimental results indicate the system’s capability for automated measurement electrical characterization of CNTs. Furthermore, the automated nanomanipulation system has the potential to be extended to other nanomanipulation tasks.

Yaqiong Wang

Papers

A PZT Actuated Triple-Finger Gripper for Multi-Target Micromanipulation.

Mechatronic Development and Vision Feedback Control of a Nanorobotics Manipulation System inside SEM for Nanodevice Assembly.

Carbon nanotubes pickup by van der Waals force based on nanorobotics manipulation inside SEM

Topologically Optimized Nano-Positioning Stage Integrating with a Capacitive Comb Sensor.

Visual Servoing-Based Nanorobotic System for Automated Electrical Characterization of Nanotubes inside SEM.