Effects of environmental noise on the accuracy of millimeter sized grippers in cantilever configuration and active stabilisation

This paper presents a study about the effects of environmental noise on millimeter sized grippers in cantilever configuration. The study is motivated and conducted aiming at assessing the level of accuracy loss when performing micromanipulation/microassembly tasks in noisy environments as well in typical microrobotics laboratories as in industrial locations or operating rooms. Ground motion and acoustic noises within a typical microrobotic laboratory are characterized in the frequency domain and their effects on cantilevers of different lengths are inspected. The relevance of a typical vibration isolation table is evaluated and the effects of low and high acoustic noises are assessed. A modeling of a cantilever with base excitation is thereafter conducted in the state space using finite difference formulation and a stabilization of a disturbed cantilever is obtained at the nanometer level in noisy environments allowing perspectives to high precision micromanipulation tasks in hostile locations.