Miniature Factories for Precision Assembly

In spite of many recent advances in MEMS technologies for integrated planar devices, most products of the future will continue to require assembly from separate parts because of differing material property requirements, the need to have a three-dimensional extent, or because of many different end user functional needs. Because many products will be very small and complex, or larger products will incorporate smaller complex subproducts, there will be an increasing need to provide technologies and systems for sensor-based micromanipulation and automated precision assembly. For the past several years we have been developing an architecture for tabletop precision assembly systems. Our goal is to improve the design, deployment, and reconfiguration of automated assembly systems for small mechatronic products requiring high precision. Design and construction of a prototype miniature factory according to our “Agile Assembly Architecture” (AAA) is underway to validate the research and provide a unique and powerful reconfigurable platform for assembly research and evaluation by industry. We are currently operating our prototype with one sigma motion resolutions of 200 nm. Central to the AAA concept is that of a “virtual” factory which is automatically registered and synchronized with the actual factory. As an application example, a virtual minifactory for assembling small electret microphones is presented. These microphones are currently assembled under stereo microscopes by hand with tweezers and other tools. We are working to provide “real” minifactories for assembling real products. Methods currently under development by the micromanipulation community, e.g. MEMS grippers and sensors, can be incorporated into future minifactory systems. Results could allow manufacturers to have the capability for developing distributed microassembly systems with drastically reduced deployment times, higher quality, and a new level of manufacturing system portability.