We develop a systematic approach to incorporating uncertainty into planning manipulation tasks with frictional contacts. We consider the canonical problem of assembling a peg into a hole at the meso scale using probes with minimal actuation but with visual feedback from an optical microscope. We consider three sources of uncertainty. Because of errors in sensing position and orientation of the ...

Repeatable manipulation and assembly of micro-scale components is a critical capability for future developments in opto-electronics, hybrid microelectromechanical systems, and the integration of nano-scale devices into larger systems. This paper focuses on one particular part of this problem; the manipulation and assembly of microspheres using a single probe with force feedback. A sharp probe c...

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A small-scale flexure-based gripper was designed for manipulation tasks requiring precision position and force control. The gripper is actuated by a piezoelectric ceramic stack actuator and utilizes strain gages to measure both the gripping force and displacement. The position and force bandwidths were designed for ten Hertz and one hundred Hertz, respectively, in order to afford human-based te...

This paper describes our efforts preparing a mobile manipulator for the 2011 AAAI Small Scale Manipulation Challenge. We describe our approach to building a lowcost mobile manipulator for human-scale environments using ROS and off-the-shelf sensory and servos.

Manipulation of small-scale matter is a fundamental topic in micro and nanorobotics. Numerous magnetic robotic systems have been developed for the manipulation microparticles an ambient environment, liquid, as well on air-liquid interface. These move intrinsically or magnetically tagged objects by inducing torque force. However, most materials found nature are nonmagnetic. Here, we report ferro...

In this paper we present algorithms and experiments for multi-scale assembly of complex structures by multi-robot teams. We also focus on tasks where successful completion requires multiple types of assembly operations with a range of precision requirements. We develop a hierarchical planning approach to multi-scale perception in support of multi-scale manipulation, in which the resolution of t...

we sought to understand  whether,  how, and  why the translated journalistic texts  related  to  the  iranian  nuclear  negotiations  were manipulated. to this end,  we  monitored  a news agency’s webpage in a time span of 46 days that began 3 days before almaty i nuclear talks and ended  3  days  after  almaty  ii  talks.  monitoring  resulted  in  a  corpus  made  up  of  36  target  texts  p...

Conventional manipulations of self-focused attention are poorly suited for Internet experiments and for group-based administration. The authors present a self-novelty manipulation that effectively induces self-awareness for such contexts. In the high self-focus condition, people write about how they differ from their family and friends and from people in general. In the control conditions, peop...

Optical trapping and manipulation of micrometre-sized particles was first reported in 1970. Since then, it has been successfully implemented in two size ranges: the subnanometre scale, where light-matter mechanical coupling enables cooling of atoms, ions and molecules, and the micrometre scale, where the momentum transfer resulting from light scattering allows manipulation of microscopic object...