Human machine interaction for manipulations in the microworld

Operating a robot in the micro/nano-world presents challenges not found in the macro-world. Due to the small dimensions, the operator has no direct access to the objects and must assemble them by teleoperation. Information on the position of the robot and the objects have to be provided to the user as well as the possibility to give commands to the robot. To allow a good manipulability, we propose a mixed teleoperation system which is composed of both direct and task-oriented teleoperation modes. The operator is provided with a set of visualization and manipulation tools on a workstation. The visualization toots are: live microscope video images with top and side view, and a 3D virtual solid model of the robot with perspective as well as orthogonal views available at the same time. The manipulation tools are: a control panel used to check the status and to operate both the camera and the robot itself and an interface with a 6 degree of freedom joystick-like manipulation. Several combinations of visualization and manipulation tools have been tested as well as several manipulation strategies. The user interface and the results of this investigation are presented in this paper, as well as a description of the robot system.