Enhancement of positioning accuracy of industrial robots with a reconfigurable fine-positioning module

Conventional industrial robots achieve a high flexibility by low investment costs, but they are limited in absolute positioning accuracy. The costs for the introduction of a new special high precision robot for micro-handling are very high, where the workspace is limited to small areas. For handling operations, best results according velocity, precision and costs can be achieved with SCARA-type robots. Therefore, the introduction of a fine-positioning module for the enhancement of positioning accuracy of robots in the micro-handling techniques, become indispensable. The most micro-handling systems on the market have been designed for individual work-pieces. With our proposed fine-positioning module, we get a reconfigurable robot system for the execution of different handlings tasks both in the micro- and meso-scale2 in the industrial automation. To increase the flexibility of the robot system, the handling system is equipped with a tool change system, which allows an automated couple of the fine-positioning module with the Scara Robot. At this robot system, the Scara Robot will be used for coarse movements, and the fine-positioning module for very accurate positioning tasks. The fine-positioning module is equipped with a microscope, which enables in combination with an image processing system relative positioning technique, object recognition and measurements simultaneously. Handling of micro-objects and measurements are the major operations, which can be executed by the fine-positioning module.