Development and control of a versatile nanohandling robot cell

Current research work on the development of a nanohandling robot cell in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) is presented. An experimental setup is shown, in which two microrobots cooperate in the vacuum chamber of an SEM. One microrobot is used as manipulator of the tool and a second one is used for manipulating the object. Priority objective in future is the systematic prototyping of CNT-based nanodevices. Special algorithms for real-time processing of noisy SEM images have been implemented and tested. In addition, a 3D graphical user interface has been developed and delivers depth information which is often crucial for teleoperation of nanoobjects due to the lack of depth information in original SEM images. In order to enable automated nanohandling, a new control strategy is proposed. One key challenge for a successful automation is continuous pose estimation of tool and object which can be solved by applying the developed 2D and 3D tracking algorithms. The functionality of the robot cell is exemplified by handling and mechanical characterization of carbon nanotubes (CNTs).