STARDUST ODYSSEY - Guinness World Record for Smallest 3D stop-motion animation character
The character is 300 microns (0.3 mm) tall.
Directed by Tibo Pinsard. Co-produced by Darrowan Prod, the Université de Franche-Comté represented by the FEMTO-ST Institute and the Université Libre de Bruxelles represented by the TIPS laboratory. With the support of the Région Bourgogne Franche-Comté.
More information on the following websites:
See making-of at :
Fabrication of a Micro-House by µRobotex Station
A 20*10*15 µm micro-house made by bending and assembly of pieces cutted into a thin membrane of thickness 1µm in the µRobotex station of the FEMTO-ST Institute. The joining of the elements and the chimney were obtained by naphthalene deposition. The micro-house is attached to an optical fiber of 120 μm diameter.
Rauch, J. Y., Lehmann, O., Rougeot, P., Abadie, J., Agnus, J., & Suarez, M. A. (2018). Smallest microhouse in the world, assembled on the facet of an optical fiber by origami and welded in the μRobotex nanofactory. Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A: Vacuum, Surfaces, and Films, 36(4), 041601.
https://avs.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1116/1.5020128
Concentric tube robot for exploration of olfactory cells
This video presents the approach used to address the exploration of the olfactory cells. The inspection scenario is first illustrated. Then, the experimental setup is presented, and the performance of the device are evaluated in terms of follow-the-leader deployment errors and scanning behavior, with video sequences supporting each individual experiment.
Research by Cédric Girerd, Kanty Rabenorosoa, Patrick Rougeot and Pierre Renaud
Stable deployement of concentric tube robots
This video, related to the researches about exploration of olfactory cells, is linked to the article : Design of Concentric Tube Robots using Tube Patterning for Follow-the-Leader Deployment, in Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics
Research from Cédric Girerd, Thomas Schlinquer, Nicolas Andreff, Pierre Renaud and Kanty Rabenorosoa
Finger Trajectory Generation for Planar Dexterous Micro Manipulation
This approach consists in developing in-hand micro-manipulation techniques using dexterous micro-hands, taking advantage of adhesion forces, to manipulate arbitrary shaped objects.
From J.A. Seon, R. Dahmouche, B. Brazey and M. Gauthier
Novel Strategy for High Precision Automated Robotic Positioning based on Fabry-Perot Interferometry Principle
Published in IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, 2018
by Houari Bettahar, Cédric Clévy, Florent Behague, Nadège Courjal and Philippe Lutz
The paper proposes a novel strategy for high precision fully automated robotic alignment. This strategy permits high accurate and fast alignment of two optical building structures (optical fiber , optical component) with optimal optical function in a known referencing between the robotic manipulator and the optical axis. A 6 Degree-Of- Freedom (DOF) robotic platform is used to relatively align an optical component to an optical fiber for experimental validation. The obtained results leads to robotic positioning uncertainty of about 0.0021◦ and alignment time of less than 12 s.
Accurate 3D-Positioning in a SEM through Robot Calibration
These works deal with the developpement of a procedure allowing to perform object rotation while keeping it at the same 3D-position in open loop. Such performance is achieved by a method of robot calibration based on visual servoing and autofocus inside SEM. This kind of properties is required for manipulation and 3D reconstruction inside SEM.
4-DoF Spherical Parallel Wrist with Embedded Grasping Capability for Minimally Invasive Surgery
These works highlight preliminary results of a new robotic wrist for minimally invasive surgery. This wrist is a high-dexterity miniature robot, able to provide simultaneously the grasping/cutting (1-DoF) and rotations capabilities with 3-DoF. The grasping function is insured by the folding of the top platform of a parallel structure. The grasping capability of the wrist is part of the mechanical structure itself and can be fully controlled by external actuators.
Haouas, W., Dahmouche, R., Le Fort-Piat, N., & Laurent, G. J.. 4-DoF spherical parallel wrist with embedded grasping capability for minimally invasive surgery. In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2016 (pp. 2363-2368).
http://www.glaurent.free.fr/papers/Haouas2016spherical.pdf
3D-Printed Vision-Based Micro-Force Sensor Dedicated to In Situ SEM Measurements
These works investigate a 3D-printed vision-based micro-force sensor intended to be used inside the chamber of a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The combination of 3D printed elastic structures with a highly effective vision based measurement method allows to design integrated sensors at the cutting edge of the state of the art. Images of periodical patterns are used to measure the differential displacement between the two parts of the compliant structure. By the knowledge of its stiffness, the force applied on it is measured. The stiffness of the elastic structure has been measured to be 15.3 N.m-1, leading to a force range of 25 μN.
Guelpa, V., Prax, J. S., Vitry, Y., Lehmann, O., Dehaeck, S., Sandoz, P., Clévy, C., Le Fort-Piat, N., Lambert, P. & Laurent, G. J. 3D-printed vision-based micro-force sensor dedicated to in situ SEM measurements. In IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), 2017 (pp. 424-429).
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8014054/
Dexterous Micromanipulation for Integrated Optics
High-accuracy, multi-Degrees-Of-Freedom positioning of a beam splitter thanks to the dexterous manipulation of a 4 Degrees-Of-Freedom microgripper. The beam splitter is part of a Michelson micro-interferometer providing a high accuracy position measurement feedback (active based principle).
K. Rabenorosoa, A. N. Das, R. Murthy, C. Clévy, D. Popa and P. Lutz, Precise motion control of a piezoelectric microgripper for microspectrometer assembly. In ASME IDETC-CIE International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, 2009.
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/417722/filename/asme2e_AS2M_auteur.pdf
Single frequency-based visual servoing for microrobotics applications
In 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
by Valérian Guelpa ; Guillaume J. Laurent ; Brahim Tamadazte ; Patrick Sandoz ; Nadine Le Fort-Piat ; Cédric Clévy
This paper proposes a new implementation of direct-phase measurement methods to achieve 3-DoF visual servoing. The proposed algorithm relies on a single frequency tracking rather than a complete 2D discrete Fourier transform that was required in previous works. Several experimental validations (in favorable and unfavorable conditions of use) were performed using a XYθ microrobotic platform. The obtained results demonstrate the efficiency of the frequency-based controller, this in term of accuracy (micrometric error), convergence rate (30 iterations in nominal conditions) and robustness.
Multistable module devoted to digital microrobotics
Compliant monolithic multistable actuator which is able to switch its moving part between several stable positions linearly in one dimensional direction.The number of stable positions can be increased by extending the range of displacement of the moving part.
From I. Bouhadda, A. Mohand Ousaid, H. Hussein, G. Bourbon, P. Lemoal, Y. Haddab and P. Lutz
3D reconstruction from SEM images of a pollen grain
Dense 3D reconstruction is a very powerful characterization tool for microscopic objects. Works are done around this subject combining SEM calibration, micro-robotic plateform characterization and stereovision.
From works of Andrey V Kudryavtsev, Sounkalo Dembélé and Nadine Piat