Meso-scale manipulation: System, modeling, planning and control

Manipulation and assembly tasks are typically characterized by many nominally rigid bodies coming into frictional contacts, possibly involving impacts. Manipulation tasks are difficult to model because uncertainties associated with friction and assembly tasks are particularly hard to analyze because of the interplay between process tolerance and geometric uncertainties due to manufacturing errors. Manipulation at the meso (hundred microns to millimeters) and micro (several microns to tens of microns) scale is even harder for several reasons. It is difficult to measure forces at the micro-netwon level reliably using off-the-shelf force sensors and good force-feedback control schemes have not proved successful. It is hard to manufacture general-purpose end effectors at this scale and it is even more difficult to grasp and manipulate parts at the micro and meso level than it is at the macro level. Finally, the lack of good models of the mechanics of contact interactions at this scale means that model-based approaches to planning and control are difficult.