Graciela Velasco

Development of micromachine tool prototypes for microfactories

At present, many areas of industry have strong tendencies towards miniaturization of products. Mechanical components of these products as a rule are manufactured using conventional large-scale equipment or micromechanical equipment based on microelectronic technology (MEMS). The first method has some drawbacks because conventional large-scale equipment consumes much energy, space and material. The second method seems to be more advanced but has some limitations, for example, two-dimensional (2D) or 2.5-dimensional shapes of components and materials compatible with silicon technology. In this paper, we consider an alternative technology of micromechanical device production. This technology is based on micromachine tools (MMT) and microassembly devices, which can be produced as sequential generations of microequipment. The first generation can be produced by conventional large-scale equipment. The machine tools of this generation can have overall sizes of 100–200 mm. Using microequipment of this generation, second generation microequipment having smaller overall sizes can be produced. This process can be repeated to produce generations of micromachine tools having overall sizes of some millimetres. In this paper we describe the efforts and some results of first generation microequipment prototyping. A micromachining centre having an overall size of 130 × 160 × 85 mm3 was produced and characterized. This centre has allowed us to manufacture micromechanical details having sizes from 50 µm to 5 mm. These details have complex three-dimensional shapes (for example, screw, gear, graduated shaft, conic details, etc), and are made from different materials, such as brass, steel, different plastics etc. We have started to investigate and to make prototypes of the assembly microdevices controlled by a computer vision system. In this paper we also describe an example of the applications (microfilters) for the proposed technology.

Flat image recognition in the process of microdevice assembly

An image recognition system for use in the assembly of microdevices is developed. The system gives an increase in the assembly process precision. A pin-to-hole insertion task was used to test developed system. The system will be used for assembly of microring-based filters.

Development of low-cost microequipment

In this article an alternative technology of micromechanical device production is considered. This technology is based on micromachine tools and microassembly devices. The micromachine tools and microassembly devices could be produced as sequential generations of microequipment. This paper describes the efforts and some results of first generation microequipment prototyping. A micromachining center having overall sizes 130 /spl times/ 160 /spl times/ 85 mm was produced and characterized. This center permits one to manufacture micromechanical details having the sizes from 50 /spl mu/m to 5 mm. These details have complex 3D-shape (for example, screw, gear, graduated shaft, conic details, etc.), and are made from different materials, for example, brass, steel, different plastics, etc. We started to investigate and make prototypes of the assembly microdevices controlled by a computer vision system. An example of the proposed technology applications (microfilters) is also described in this paper.

Artificial Intelligence Systems in Micromechanics

Some of the artificial intelligence (AI) methods could be used to improve the automation system performance in manufacturing processes. However, the implementation of these AI methods in the industry is rather slow, because of the high cost of the experiments with the conventional manufacturing and AI systems. To lower the experiment cost in this field, we have developed a special micromechanical equipment, similar to conventional mechanical equipment, but of much smaller size and therefore of lower cost. This equipment could be used for evaluation of different AI methods in an easy and inexpensive way. The proved methods could be transferred to the industry through appropriate scaling. In this paper we describe the prototypes of low cost microequipment for manufacturing processes and some AI method implementations to increase its precision, like computer vision systems based on neural networks for microdevice assembly, and genetic algorithms for microequipment characterization and microequipment precision increase.

Techniques in the Development of Micromachine Tool Prototypes & Their Applications in Microfactories MET Technology

At present, many areas of industry have strong tendencies towards miniaturization of products. Mechanical components of these products as a rule are manufactured using conventional large-scale equipment or micromechanical equipment based on microelectronic technology (MEMS). The first method has some drawbacks because conventional largescale equipment consumes much energy, space and material. The second method seems to be more advanced but has some limitations, for example, two-dimensional (2D) or 2.5-dimensional shapes of components and materials compatible with silicon technology. Here we consider an alternative technology of micromechanical device production. This technology is based on micromachine tools (MMT) and microassembly devices, which can be produced as sequential generations of microequipment. The first generation can be produced by conventional large-scale equipment. The machine tools of this generation can have overall sizes of 100–200 mm. Using microequipment of this generation, second generation microequipment having smaller overall sizes can be produced. This process can be repeated to produce generations of micromachine tools having overall sizes of some millimeters. In this work we analyze the problems of microequipment miniaturization and give some results of first generation microequipment prototyping. Amicromachining center having an overall size of 130 × 160 × 85mm3 was produced and characterized. This center has allowed us to manufacture micromechanical details having sizes from 50 µm to 5 mm. These details have complex three-dimensional shapes (for example, screw, gear, graduated shaft, conic details, etc.), and are made from different materials, such as brass, steel, different plastics etc. Earlier in a Japanese project micromachine tools and micromanipulators were created with expensive elements of precision technology. The high cost of such microequipment slows down its promotion to the market. We propose another method of micromachine tool and micromanipulator creation. We do not use the expensive elements. To obtain the necessary precision we utilize the natural advantages of equipment of small size. The error analysis of the microequipment made in this work shows that the miniaturization of the microequipment automatically leads to decreasing of the errors of the micromachine tools. Examples of the developed microequipment prototypes are given. We have started to investigate and to make prototypes of the assembly microdevices controlled by a computer vision system. In this paper we also describe an example of the applications (microfilters) for the proposed technology.