Assembly Planning in a Flexible Micro-assembly Station

A very wide range of micro-components, such as sensors, mechanical components and actuators can today be produced using micro-techniques. At the current stage, microsystem technology demands for advanced assembly facilities which can assemble complex microsystems consisting of many single components (i.e. hybrid microsystems). To perform a fully automated microassembly, problems specific to the handling of micro-parts have to be considered. These must to be taken into account already at the assembly planning level to be able to perform an efficient micro-assembly. Furthermore, it is necessary to introduce flexible, highly precise and fast microassembly methods. After introducing the microrobot-based microassembly desktop station that has been developed at the University of Karlsruhe, we present the assembly planning system of this station which is tailored to the specific needs of micro-assembly. Additionally, the differences between conventional (macro-) assembly and micro-assembly are shown.