Hardware-Software Co-Design Tracking System for Predictable High-Speed Mobile Microrobot Position Control

Fast closed-loop control is a key issue for high-throughput automated micro-and nanohandling. Currently, mobile robot position control relies on computer vision using FireWire- or USB-cameras. This approach has several drawbacks for closed-loop control, such as limited update rate, high latency and unpredictable jitter. To overcome these drawbacks, a new hardware-based position tracking algorithm is presented and compared to current position control sensors. Additionally, several measurements of a closed-loop controlled mobile robot for micro- and nanohandling show the system's advanced performance in terms of speed and accuracy using the new sensor.