A Handheld Master Device for 3D Remote Micro-Manipulation

Micro-assembly has always been a substantial issue for automation: micro-objects are difficult to grasp due to micro-world physical laws and a lack of adapted sensors. Therefore, many tasks are teleoperated using a nonintuitive device as joystick or button. This paper proposes a fresh remote handling solution to fill that need. A new 1-DOF master device which mimics a tweezers is brought to the fore: it is an instrumented haptic tweezers, handheld, allowing a high intuitiveness for the user. This master device, coupled with a tracking system, controls a micro-positioner and a micro-gripper. Different coupling strategies using position or speed variables are demonstrated.