08.06.2015
ER4STEM

Educational Robotics for STEM

Many children lose their natural curiosity for how things function and interrelate to each other along the way into their lives as young adults. The Educational Robotics for STEM (ER4STEM) project aims to turn curious young children into young adults passionate about science and technology with a hands-on use case: robotics. The domain of robotics represents a multidisciplinary and highly innovative field encompassing physics, maths, informatics and even industrial design as well as social sciences. Moreover, due to various application domains, teamwork, creativity and entrepreneurial skills are required for the design, programming and innovative exploitation of robots and robotic services. Children are fascinated by such autonomous machines. This fascination and the variety of fields and topics covered make robotics a powerful idea to engage with. Young girls as well as boys can easily connect robots to their personal interests and share their ideas through these tangible artefacts.

ER4STEM will refine, unify and enhance current European approaches to STEM education through robotics in one open operational and conceptual framework. The concept is founded on three important pillars of constructionism: 1. engaging with powerful ideas, 2. building on personal interests, and 3. learning through making (or presenting ideas with tangible artefacts). The ER4STEM framework will coherently offer students aged 7 to 18 as well as their educators different perspectives and approaches to find their interests and strengths in robotics to pursue STEM careers through robotics and semi-autonomous smart devices. At the same time students will learn about technology (e.g. circuits), about a domain (e.g. math) and acquire skills (e.g. collaborating, coding). Innovative approaches will be developed to achieve an integrated and consistent concept that picks children up at different ages, beginning in primary school and accompany them until graduation from secondary school.

Partners

  • European Software Institute Center Eastern Europe
  • Practical Robotics Institute Austria
  • University of Athens Educational Technology Lab
  • AcrossLimits
  • Cardiff University School of Social Science
  • Certicon

Funding

  • EU H2020-SEAC-2014-1

  29.03.2015
FLOBOT

Washing Robot for Professional Users

Supermarkets, as well as other industrial, commercial, civil and service premises such as Airports, Trade fairs, Hospitals, Sport courts have huge floor surfaces to be cleaned daily and infra-daily. These activities are time demanding in terms of human repetitive activities. They take place at various times, often with a tight schedule depending on the kind of premise and available time slots as well as organisational issues of the tenant of the premise; often the personnel have to be present on standby on the premises to be cleaned. Additionally, cleaning services often have problems related to workers’ health and ergonomics. The economic viability of the companies commonly relies on low wages and low-skills personnel. Therefore the floor washing activities are best suited for robotisation.

Currently, it does not exist a robot that satisfies the requirements of the professional users and cleaning services companies in terms of both cleaning performance and in terms of cost. The robotised floor washing tasks are demanding under many aspects: autonomy of operation, precision of the navigation, safety with regards to humans and goods, interaction with the personnel, easy set-up of path and tasks sequences without complex reprogramming.

FLOBOT addresses these problems integrating existing research results into a professional floor washing robot platform for wide area industrial, civil and commercial premises. The result will be a TRL-8 prototype, tested in a real operating environment. The project derives requirements from professional users and implements case validations in four kinds of premises.

The FLOBOT will be a professional robot scrubber with suction to dry the floor. The system consists of a mobile platform (robot) and of a docking station. It includes software modules for human tracking for safety, floor cleaning intelligence, navigation and mapping, mission programming and connection to the data management ERP of the users.

Funding

  • Horizon 2020 Programme (H2020-ICT-2014-1, Grant agreement no: 645376).

  14.07.2014
Crazy Robots

Crazy Robots is a science communication project of the Vision for Robotics Group, funded by FWF Wissenschaftsfonds. The project aims to teach school students robotics from the product development perspective and addresses all students (not only the ones interested in Science, Technology Engineering, and Mathematics – STEM). A specific feature of this project is the user-centered design approach which focuses on the interests of students and teachers and involves other stakeholders like parents.

The concept is based on the “5-step plan” and the “project assignment with Mattie robot”. Both concepts and the robot were developed for children. The researchers follow two main goals:

  1. The project introduces students, teachers (and interested parents) to robotics by offering different perspectives, e.g. not only the technical, but also social and economical perspectives. Furthermore, students are encouraged to find ways to apply their interests and talents in robotics fields.
  2. Along the way, the project evaluates the effectiveness of the concept and, if given, the applicability of the ideas to real products or services in robotic fields.

The project started on March 2014. After a phase of planning and development pilot schools were contacted. Since October 2014 the implementation is under way. Five high schools from Vienna take part in the project with a second or third class (and their teachers from handiwork or physics).

In detail the project covers following: each class learns about the product development process of robots in three workshops during one semester. Each of these workshops symbolizes an incisive phase of product development.

It starts with ideation in the first workshop “concept”, where students develop their first robot ideas with the help of the 5-step plan – a simple yet effective structure for their ideas – which they convert into a clay model.

For the second workshop “experts”, the class visits the Vision for Robotics Lab and meets robotics experts who talk about their work – computer vision – during a demo. After this, the students receive a project assignment from the CEO of the Crazy Robots Inc. to build a first prototype of a robot for kids. Each student can decide to be in one of the following teams: engineering, human-robot interaction, research&development, design or sales&marketing.

In the third workshop “evaluation”, the different teams reunite and integrate the robots parts. Then, the prototype is evaluated from two perspectives: technical and user. Finally, the product idea is presented to the CEO and the prototype is demonstrated. Between workshops, teachers have the possibility to discuss lessons learned in class.

  08.06.2014
SQUIRREL

Clearing Clutter Bit by Bit

Clutter in an open world is a challenge for many aspects of robotic systems, especially for autonomous robots deployed in unstructured domestic settings, affecting navigation, manipulation, vision, human robot interaction and planning.

Squirrel addresses these issues by actively controlling clutter and incrementally learning to extend the robot’s capabilities while doing so. We term this the B3 (bit by bit) approach, as the robot tackles clutter one bit at a time and also extends its knowledge continuously as new bits of information become available. Squirrel is inspired by a user driven scenario, that exhibits all the rich complexity required to convincingly drive research, but allows tractable solutions with high potential for exploitation. We propose a toy cleaning scenario, where a robot learns to collect toys scattered in loose clumps or tangled heaps on the floor in a child’s room, and to stow them in designated target locations.

We will advance science w.r.t. manipulation, where we will incrementally learn grasp affordances with a dexterous hand; segmenting and learning objects and object category models from a cluttered scene; localisation and navigation in a crowded and changing scene based on incrementally built 3D environment models; iterative task planning in an open world; and engaging with multiple users in a dynamic collaborative task.

Progress will be measured in scenarios of increasing complexity, starting with known object classes, via incremental learning of objects and grasp affordances to the full system with failure recovery and active control of clutter, instantiated on two different robot platforms. Systems will be evaluated in nurseries and day cares, where children playfully engage with the robot to teach it to how to clean up.

Partners

  • Technische Universität Wien, Institut für Automatisierungs- und Regelungstechnik
  • Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
  • Universität Innsbruck
  • King’s College London
  • University of Twente
  • Frauenhofer IPA
  • Festo Didactic
  • IDMind
  • Verein Pädagogische Initiative 2-10

Funding

FP7 No. 610532.

  08.06.2014
Argonauts

Argo Challenge von Total

Total has launched in December 2013, the ARGOS Challenge (Autonomous Robot for Gas and Oil Sites), an international robotics competition designed to foster the development of a new generation of autonomous robots adapted to the oil and gas sites. These robots will be capable of performing inspection tasks, detecting anomalies and intervening in emergency situations.

In June 2014, five teams from Austria, Spain, France, Japan and Switzerland were selected to take part in the ARGOS challenge. They have less than three years to design and build the first autonomous surface robot complying with ATEX/ IECEx standards*. The robot will be able to operate in specific environments encountered in the oil and gas industry.

By launching this challenge in partnership with the French National Research Agency (ANR), Total has adopted an open innovation strategy. The aim was to involve associations in robotics, partly to make them more aware of the operating constraints encountered in oil and gas production activities, and partly to encourage them to suggest innovative robotics solutions, providing answers to the problems we encounter, and increasing safety for our personnel.

Partners

5 teams Argonauts, Foxiris, Vikings, Air-K and Lio and come from Austria, Spain, France, Japan and Switzerland

Funding

Total Challenge operated by ANR (Total) and EuroSTAR

  14.07.2013
FRANC

Field Robot for Advanced Navigation in Bio Crops

While in modern agriculture increasingly powerful complex machines with advanced technology are used organic farming is characterized by multiple manual tasks. The project FRANC develops and builds an autonomous vehicle which can be used especially in organic farming. The vehicle is equipped with the necessary sensor technology and control hard- and software to autonomously drive in row crops. By steerable front and rear wheels a tight turning radius will be possible. A modular design of the vehicle allows easy and flexible adaptations for different applications and requirements. In order to ensure that the vehicle can be stopped immediately and brought to a save operation mode a safety concept is developed. Regarding the safety system, it is assumed that the vehicle does not operate unattended and that a remote controller allows to interference with the automatic system at any time.

Within this project, the school is introduced to an advanced technology in agricultural engineering. It is primarily intended to arouse students for the interest in robotics. The use of modern technologies (sensors, navigation, control technics , …) can be taught in a clear way with foundation in a real application. The trend in agricultural farming is towards diagnosis and treatment of individual plants. Thus a huge amount of research questions are far beyond the project’s goals. This project builds the basis for a future and long-term collaboration.

Partners

  • Technische Universität Wien, Institut für Automatisierungs- und Regelungstechnik
  • Josephinum Research
  • Hochschule Osnabrück, Fakultät Ingenieurwissenschaften und Informatik
  • Bio Lutz GmbH
  • BLT Wieslburg
  • Höhere Bundeslehr- und Forschungsanstalt Francisco Josephinum
  • Höhere Technische Bundeslehr- und Versuchsanstalt Waidhofen an der Ybbs

Funding

FRANC is funded by Sparkling Science, a programme of the Federal Ministry of Science and Research of Austria.

  09.06.2013
STRANDS

Spatio-Temporal Representations and Activities for Cognitive Control in Long-Term Scenarios

STRANDS aims to enable a robot to achieve robust and intelligent behaviour in human environments through adaptation to, and the exploitation of, long-term experience. Our approach is based on understanding 3D space and how it changes over time, from milliseconds to months.

We will develop novel approaches to extract quantitative and qualitative spatio-temporal structure from sensor data gathered during months of autonomous operation. Extracted structure will include reoccurring geometric primitives, objects, people, and models of activity. We will also develop control mechanisms which exploit these structures to yield adaptive behaviour in highly demanding, real-world security and care scenarios.

The spatio-temporal dynamics presented by such scenarios (e.g. humans moving, furniture changing position, objects (re-)appearing) are largely treated as anomalous readings by state-of-the-art robots. Errors introduced by these readings accumulate over the lifetime of such systems, preventing many of them from running for more than a few hours. By autonomously modelling spatio-temporal dynamics, our robots will be able run for significantly longer than current systems (at least 120 days by the end of the project). Long runtimes provide previously unattainable opportunities for a robot to learn about its world. Our systems will take these opportunities, advancing long-term mapping, life-long learning about objects, person tracking, human activity recognition and self-motivated behaviour generation.

We will integrate our advances into complete cognitive systems to be deployed and evaluated at two end-user sites. The tasks these systems will perform are impossible without long-term adaptation to spatio-temporal dynamics, yet they are tasks demanded by early adopters of cognitive robots. We will measure our progress by benchmarking these systems against detailed user requirements and a range of objective criteria including measures of system runtime and autonomous behaviour.

Partners

  • Technische Universität Wien, Institut für Automatisierungs- und Regelungstechnik
  • University of Birmingham
  • Akademie für Altersforschung am Haus der Barmherzigkeit
  • G4S Technology Ltd
  • Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan
  • Rheinisch-Westfäische Technische Hochschule Aachen
  • University of Leeds
  • University of Lincoln

Funding

FP7 no. 600623

  01.01.2013
Atomic Force Microscopy capable of vibration isolation (Vibrostop AFM)

Project focus

  • Development of an AFM that is capable of vibration isolation, potentially for on-site imaging.
  • Mechanical design and motion control to achieve high vibration rejection and isolation.

Description

An atomic force microscope (AFM) can image and inspect a sample surface with high resolution by scanning a probe with a sharp tip over the sample. During scanning, the vertical position of the probe with respect to the sample typically needs to be regulated with nanometer resolution. For the required high resolution, AFMs are sensitive to vibrations transmitted from the floor dependent on their design. Particularly when AFMs are designed to image large samples or when they include relatively heavy components (e.g. stepper motors for user-friendly automated AFMs), they have mechanical resonances at low frequencies. Floor vibration can excite these resonances, creating artifacts on AFM images by changing the probe-sample distance. Therefore, AFMs are usually mounted on vibration isolators and operated in quiet environments. Overall, the vibration sensitivity is a weakness of AFMs, restricting the measurement sites.

In order to enable on-site AFM imaging and inline metrology by overcoming that weakness, vibration isolation is integrated in an AFM in this project. The principle of the vibration isolation along the vertical Z axis is shown in Fig. 1, where an AFM head with a probe is attached to a moving platform that is vertically moved by vibration rejection actuators. These actuators maintain the distance between the AFM probe and the sample such that AFM images can be generated in a vibrational environment. This project focuses on the mechatronic system design of the proposed system, including selection of precision actuators, as well as mechanical component design and motion control.

Principle of the vibration isolation integrated in an AFM.

Mechatronic Design

Due to their small size and high linearity without backlash and friction present in typical bearings, Lorentz actuators (voice coil actuators) are selected and guided by leaf spring flexures as the vibration rejection actuators. After they are attached to the moving platform, its frequency response is measured from the control input to the platform position, as shown in Fig. 2.

Measured Bode plot of the moving platform from the control input to the resulting platform position [Ito et al., Mechatronics, 44, 2017].

The mechanical resonance at 35 Hz is due to the suspension mode. In the mechanical design, its resonant frequency is intentionally adjusted to the major spectrum of the floor vibrations. By doing so, the mode can be effectively utilized for vibration rejection as discussed in the next section.

Precision Motion Control

The vibrations between the probe and the sample are detected by the displacement sensor in Fig. 1, and they are rejected by using a feedback controller. When the resulting closed-loop system has a control bandwidth significantly higher than the suspension mode’s frequency, the positioning system attains a high immunity against floor vibrations [Ito et al., IEEE TMECH, 21(2), 2016]. In this case, the suspension mode at 35 Hz can be used to increase the open-loop gain for better vibration rejection. For verification, the sensitivity function is measured as shown in Fig. 3(a), where a deep notch is visible at 35 Hz. This notch is especially beneficial for the moving platform to track the sample.

In addition to the sample tracking, the moving platform must isolate the vibrations from the actuators’ base (i.e. the upper vibrating plate in Fig.1). In order to validate the vibration isolation performance, the transmissibility is simulated based on a nominal plant model, as shown in Fig. 3(b). When the feedback controller is turned off, the response shows a high peak at 35 Hz because the floor vibrations strongly excite the suspension mode. However, this peak can be perfectly trimmed by turning on the feedback controller, which is due to the 35 Hz deep notch in Fig. 3(a). Consequently, the proposed system realizes the transmissibility that is smaller than 0 dB in the entire frequency range for high vibration isolation. Note that realization of such transmissibility is difficult by piezoelectric actuators, which are commonly used in AFMs.

(a) Measured sensitivity function, and (b) simulated transmissibility when the feedback controller is turned off and on [Ito et al., Mechatronics, 44, 2017].

Scientific Imaging and Metrology Systems

For an experimental demonstration, the proposed AFM system is operated without external vibration isolation on the fourth floor of a building directly under which the subway runs. According to the Vibration Criterion [Amick et al., SPIE, 5933, Aug. 2005], the environment is not suitable for high resolution imaging systems .

Fig. 4 shows images of a calibration grating with a height of 114 nm. When the feedback control is turned off (Fig.4(a)), the sample features are not clearly visible due to the grainy stripes resulting from the floor vibrations although they might be roughly guessed. However, by turning on the feedback controller in Fig. 4(b), the circular features can be clearly distinguished. Overall, the experimental results successfully demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed AFM system that enables AFM imaging in vibrational environment.

Topography images generated by the proposed AFM system when the feedback controller is (a) turned off and (b) turned on. See [Ito et al., Mechatronics, 44, 2017] for more results and analysis.

Applications

  • In-line and on-line metrology
  • On-site atomic force microscopy (e.g. during field trips)

Related publications

  • S. Ito and G. Schitter, Atomic Force Microscopy Capable of Vibration Isolation with Low-stiffness Z-axis Actuation, Ultramicroscopy, vol. 186, 2018.
    [BibTex] [Download] 
    @Article{TUW-263910,
author = {Ito, Shingo and Schitter, Georg},
title = {Atomic Force Microscopy Capable of Vibration Isolation with Low-stiffness Z-axis Actuation},
journal = {Ultramicroscopy},
year = {2018},
volume = {186},
doi = {10.1016/j.ultramic.2017.12.007},
keywords = {Atomic force microscopy, Vibration isolation, Voice coil actuators, Robust control},
numpages = {9},
}
  • S. Ito and G. Schitter, Optimal Fail-Safe Motion Using Dynamic Brake for Lorentz-actuated AFM, in Proceedings of the 2018 15th International Workshop on Advanced Motion Control (AMC), 2018.
    [BibTex] [Download] 
    @InProceedings{TUW-268843,
author = {Ito, Shingo and Schitter, Georg},
title = {Optimal Fail-Safe Motion Using Dynamic Brake for Lorentz-actuated AFM},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2018 15th International Workshop on Advanced Motion Control (AMC)},
year = {2018},
note = {Vortrag: 2018 15th International Workshop on Advanced Motion Control (AMC), Tokyo (Japan); 2018-03-09 -- 2018-03-11},
numpages = {6},
}
  • S. Ito, S. Unger, and G. Schitter, Vibration isolator carrying atomic force microscope’s head, Mechatronics, vol. 44, p. 32–41, 2017.
    [BibTex] [Download] 
    @Article{TUW-259386,
Title = {Vibration isolator carrying atomic force microscope's head},
Author = {Ito, Shingo and Unger, Severin and Schitter, Georg},
Journal = {Mechatronics},
Year = {2017},
Pages = {32--41},
Volume = {44},
Doi = {10.1016/j.mechatronics.2017.04.008},
}
  • S. Ito, F. Cigarini, S. Unger, and G. Schitter, Flexure design for precision positioning using low-stiffness actuators, in Proceedings of the 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems, 2016, p. 200–205.
    [BibTex] 
    @InProceedings{TUW-251121,
Title = {Flexure design for precision positioning using low-stiffness actuators},
Author = {Ito, Shingo and Cigarini, Francesco and Unger, Severin and Schitter, Georg},
Booktitle = {Proceedings of the 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems},
Year = {2016},
Note = {Posterpr{\"a}sentation: 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems {\&} 15th Mechatronics Forum International Conference, Loughborough (Vereinigte K{\"o}nigreich); 2016-09-05 -- 2016-09-08},
Pages = {200--205},
Doi = {10.1016/j.ifacol.2016.10.548},
Keywords = {Flexure, Lorentz actuator, voice coil motor, precision positioning}
}

 

Project partners

Funding

  01.01.2013
Component-based design of industrial control applications utilizing formal methods

Project Goals

  • Development of a modeling environment for automation software components
  • Integration of the modeling environment into CodeSys framework
  • Automatic generation of partial control applications based on engineering knowledge

Plant and component model

Description

The engineering of highly automated production systems involves a variety of experts from different engineering disciplines, where most of them contribute at least to a sub-part of the control application for the engineered plant. One of the main objectives of today’s research activities in industrial automation is to simplify the engineering process for control and monitoring applications. The most promising approaches is to design and apply standardized software components, which enables non-experts to design such control or monitoring applications on a more abstract level as shown in Fig. 1. Such a software component has to meet several requirements. It has to contain and provide the description of aspects of the plant, control application and possible faults (hardware as well as software specific) in a standardized way. Furthermore, information about the interface, component behavior, and provided or consumed services have to be provided.

Modular design of control applications based on software components

Automation and Industrial Control Systems

Component-based control application design by applying knowledge-based methods

The project scope includes the development of a library of standardized software components. Such software components enable a simplified implementation of industrial control applications by composition of such components on an abstract level. Furthermore, the library components already define integrated basic control functionality of the underlying hardware component and provide services for connecting several components in a flexible manner with each other (application integration). The provided library can further be easily extended by the users (engineering of new components or extension of existing software components). Thus, the implementation of the control sequence is realized with standardized modules, provided component services, and integrated control functionality. Also a hierarchical aggregation and modelling of the software component is possible. The control specification created by the application engineer can then be automatically transformed into executable control code, e.g. for Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). Furthermore, the automatic code generation based on knowledge-based approaches enables the generation of control functionality, where its specification is elaborated during preceding engineering phases in standardized engineering artifacts (e.g., wiring diagrams, piping and instrumentation diagrams, mechanical plans).

Component-based development of fault detection systems in industrial automation

A major goal of the project – beside the above mentioned simplification of the engineering of control applications – is the automated generation of a reliable system to detect and identify abnormal system states. Every unexpected failure in a production plant entails the possibility of damages and downtime due to emergency shutdowns. To shorten the downtime and to support repair work and maintenance, the integration of a fault detection and identification (FDI) system is necessary. The implementation effort of such systems in modern production plants grows disproportionately with the complexity and size of the plant.

By adding the aspects of fault detection to the library components, the automated generation of a FDI-system is enabled, leading to a considerable reduction of implementation effort. Furthermore, the system is highly flexible and scalable, due to the encapsulation of functionalities in software components. Since the concept is based on engineering data, the system can already be used during commissioning of the plant, thereby shortening the commissioning time.

Applications

  • Industrial engineering
  • Modular manufacturing plants

Related publications

  • M. Steinegger, M. Melik-Merkumians, J. Zajc, and G. Schitter, Automatic Generation of Diagnostic Handling Code for Decentralized PLC-based Control Architectures, in Proceedings of 2016 IEEE 21th Conference on Emerging Technologies & Factory Automation, 2016, p. 1–8.
    [BibTex] 
    @InProceedings{TUW-252236,
Title = {Automatic Generation of Diagnostic Handling Code for Decentralized PLC-based Control Architectures},
Author = {Steinegger, Michael and Melik-Merkumians, Martin and Zajc, Johannes and Schitter, Georg},
Booktitle = {Proceedings of 2016 IEEE 21th Conference on Emerging Technologies {\&} Factory Automation},
Year = {2016},
Note = {Vortrag: 21st IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA 2016), Berlin; 2016-09-06 -- 2016-09-09},
Pages = {1--8},
Doi = {10.1109/ETFA.2016.7733694},
ISBN = {978-1-5090-1314-2}
}

Funding

Festo AG & Co. KG

  01.01.2013
Automated in-line metrology for nanopositioning systems (aim4np)

Project focus

  • Mechanical design and analysis of a 6-DoF precision positioning system
  • System modeling, control loop design and implementation
  • Prototype design, system integration and testing

Description

Vibration isolation concept for in-line nanometrology

Robot based in-process metrology is a key enabling technology for upcoming production systems and is considered as one of the most important preconditions for future production. Measuring properties at the nanometer scale such as topography, morphology and roughness within a production line becomes increasingly important for quality control and process monitoring tasks to make high tech production more efficient. Atomic Force Microscopes [AFM] and related scanning probe microscopes are commonly used to investigate the samples under test in great detail and with the required accuracy and spatial resolution. Such metrology tools are usually applied in a vibration-free scientific environment which is completely contrary to a production environment. Production facilities are populated with machines and working personal that introduce environmental vibrations typically exceeding the structure size of the sample. Comparable instruments that are compatible with production environments do not exist but are an absolute necessity to make the step into the next production era.

Within the scope of this project, a novel approach is developed for robot-based in-line metrology to isolate nanoscale measurements from environmental vibrations. Instead of isolating sample and robot from floor vibrations by means of passive or active vibration isolation aids, the distance between sample and metrology tool is kept constant. This is realized by a metrology platform, which will be brought in close proximity to the sample by an industrial robot. It is equipped with high precision position sensors, which measure the distance between sample and metrology platform. A six degree of freedom actuator creates the force for tracking the sample. Tracking of the sample is facilitated by a high bandwidth feedback control, hence forming a vibration-free environment for the nanoscale measurement directly in the production line.

Mechatronic Design and System Integration

On-site vibrations measurements are conducted to derive system requirements, and to specify requirements on the component level. A holistic design approach is applied that considers control relevant requirements already in the mechanical and electronic design steps to achieve a high performance of the mechatronic system. For example, such requirements concern the need for compactness and high stiffness of the inspection tools as they are actively moved by the platform, which is in conflict with their usage in vibration-free environments.

This results in a compact six degrees of freedom Lorentz actuator (zero stiffness actuation) with a gravity compensator powered by high bandwidth current controlled amplifiers, and a balanced design to minimize actuation power.  By using finite element analysis tools, the structural stiffness of the platform is analysed with the aim to enable high bandwidth position control.

Experimental metrology platform setup with on-board AFM

Precision Motion Control

Modelbased control techniques are applied to incorporate higher order plant dynamics such as caused by structural resonances of the mechanical structure. A system model is built to decouple the MIMO plant, resulting in the implementation of SISO controllers for each degree of freedom. Switching control techniques are researched to operate the metrology platform in two different modes, which are the control with sensors mounted in the actuator and the control with the tracking sensor. Further new approaches are developed to allow high bandwidth control of a body with high resonance frequencies that is mechanically coupled to a body exhibiting low resonance frequencies.

Scientific Imaging and Metrology Systems

An AFM head with a self-sensing cantilever is installed and used as inspection tool. Imaging of test gratings, plastic injection samples and nanowires could be successfully demonstrated.

AFM imaging in a noisy environment

Videos

Applications

  • In-line metrology
  • Nanopositioning systems

Related publications

  • J. Fraxedas, U. Staufer, R. Munnig Schmidt, J. W. Spronck, E. R. Trinidad, R. Deng, G. Schitter, M. Thier, S. Messineo, S. Ito, R. Hainisch, R. Saathof, F. Perez-Murano, A. Verdaguer, A. Blümel, E. J. W. List-Kratochvil, R. Koops, M. van Veghel, R. Sum, A. Lieb, W. Schott, D. Dontsov, T. Sulzbach, W. Engl, C. Penzkofer, C. Colominas, K. Fluch, A. Garcia-Granada, J. Puigoriol-Forcada Josep MariaFraxedas, U. Staufer, R. Munnig Schmidt, J. W. Spronck, E. R. Trinidad, R. Deng, G. Schitter, M. Thier, S. Messineo, S. Ito, R. Hainisch, R. Saathof, F. Perez-Murano, A. Verdaguer, A. Blümel, E. J. W. List-Kratochvil, R. Koops, M. van Veghel, R. Sum, A. Lieb, W. Schott, D. Dontsov, T. Sulzbach, W. Engl, C. Penzkofer, C. Colominas, K. Fluch, A. Garcia-Granada, and J. M. Puigoriol-Forcada, Automated inline Metrology for Nanoscale Production – aim4np, in 3rd International Conference on Industrial Technologies Research and Innovation, 2014.
    [BibTex] 
    @Conference{TUW-236535,
Title = {Automated inline Metrology for Nanoscale Production - aim4np},
Author = {Fraxedas, Jordi and Staufer, Urs and Munnig Schmidt, Robert and Spronck, Jo W. and Trinidad, Enrique Rull and Deng, Ruijun and Schitter, Georg and Thier, Markus and Messineo, Saverio and Ito, Shingo and Hainisch, Reinhard and Saathof, Rudolf and Perez-Murano, Francesc and Verdaguer, Albert and Bl{\"u}mel, Alexander and List-Kratochvil, Emil J. W. and Koops, Richard and van Veghel, Marijn and Sum, Robert and Lieb, Andreas and Schott, Walter and Dontsov, Denys and Sulzbach, Thomas and Engl, Wolfgang and Penzkofer, Christian and Colominas, Carles and Fluch, Karl and Garcia-Granada, Andr{\'e}s-Amador and Puigoriol-Forcada, Josep MariaFraxedas, Jordi and Staufer, Urs and Munnig Schmidt, Robert and Spronck, Jo W. and Trinidad, Enrique Rull and Deng, Ruijun and Schitter, Georg and Thier, Markus and Messineo, Saverio and Ito, Shingo and Hainisch, Reinhard and Saathof, Rudolf and Perez-Murano, Francesc and Verdaguer, Albert and Bl{\"u}mel, Alexander and List-Kratochvil, Emil J. W. and Koops, Richard and van Veghel, Marijn and Sum, Robert and Lieb, Andreas and Schott, Walter and Dontsov, Denys and Sulzbach, Thomas and Engl, Wolfgang and Penzkofer, Christian and Colominas, Carles and Fluch, Karl and Garcia-Granada, Andr{\'e}s-Amador and Puigoriol-Forcada, Josep Maria},
Booktitle = {3rd International Conference on Industrial Technologies Research and Innovation},
Year = {2014},
Doi = {10.13140/2.1.3459.3607}
}
  • M. Thier, R. Saathof, A. Sinn, R. Hainisch, and G. Schitter, Six Degree of Freedom Vibration Isolation Platform for In-Line Nano-Metrology, in Proceedings of the 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems, 2016, p. 149–156.
    [BibTex] 
    @InProceedings{TUW-251134,
Title = {Six Degree of Freedom Vibration Isolation Platform for In-Line Nano-Metrology},
Author = {Thier, Markus and Saathof, Rudolf and Sinn, Andreas and Hainisch, Reinhard and Schitter, Georg},
Booktitle = {Proceedings of the 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems},
Year = {2016},
Note = {Vortrag: 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems {\&} 15th Mechatronics Forum International Conference, Loughborough (Vereinigte K{\"o}nigreich); 2016-09-05 -- 2016-09-08},
Pages = {149--156},
Doi = {10.1016/j.ifacol.2016.10.534},
Keywords = {Vibration isolation, Systems design, Nano-metrology, Precision positioning systems.}
}
  • E. Csencsics, M. Thier, P. Siegl, and G. Schitter, Mechatronic Design of an Active Two-body Vibration Isolation System, in Proceedings of the 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems, 2016, p. 133–140.
    [BibTex] [Download] 
    @InProceedings{TUW-251120,
author = {Csencsics, Ernst and Thier, Markus and Siegl, Philipp and Schitter, Georg},
title = {Mechatronic Design of an Active Two-body Vibration Isolation System},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems},
year = {2016},
pages = {133--140},
note = {Vortrag: 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems {\&} 15th Mechatronics Forum International Conference, Loughborough (Vereinigte K{\"o}nigreich); 2016-09-05 -- 2016-09-08},
doi = {10.1016/j.ifacol.2016.10.532},
keywords = {Vibration isolation, Systems design, Mechanical decoupling, PID controllers, Reduced energy consumption}
}
  • F. Cigarini, E. Csencsics, R. Saathof, and G. Schitter, Design of Tuneable Damping for Precision Positioning of a Two-Body System, in Proceedings of the 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems, 2016, p. 222–227.
    [BibTex] [Download] 
    @InProceedings{TUW-251116,
author = {Cigarini, Francesco and Csencsics, Ernst and Saathof, Rudolf and Schitter, Georg},
title = {Design of Tuneable Damping for Precision Positioning of a Two-Body System},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems},
year = {2016},
pages = {222--227},
note = {Posterpr{\"a}sentation: 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems {\&} 15th Mechatronics Forum International Conference, Loughborough (Vereinigte K{\"o}nigreich); 2016-09-05 -- 2016-09-08},
doi = {10.1016/j.ifacol.2016.10.554},
keywords = {Two-body systems, precision positioning, damping}
}
  • M. Thier, R. Saathof, E. Csencsics, R. Hainisch, A. Sinn, and G. Schitter, Entwurf und Regelung eines Positioniersystems für robotergestützte Nanomesstechnik, at – Automatisierungstechnik, vol. 63, p. 727–738, 2015.
    [BibTex] [Download] 
    @Article{TUW-242211,
author = {Thier, Markus and Saathof, Rudolf and Csencsics, Ernst and Hainisch, Reinhard and Sinn, Andreas and Schitter, Georg},
title = {Entwurf und Regelung eines Positioniersystems f{\"u}r robotergest{\"u}tzte Nanomesstechnik},
journal = {at - Automatisierungstechnik},
year = {2015},
volume = {63},
pages = {727--738},
doi = {10.1515/auto-2015-0044},
keywords = {In-Prozess-Messtechnik, Pr{\"a}zisionspositionierung, Pr{\"a}zisionsmesstechnik, Instrumentierung.},
}
  • R. Saathof, M. Thier, R. Heinisch, and G. Schitter, Integrated system and control design of a one DoF nano-metrology platform, Mechatronics, vol. 47, pp. 88-96, 2017.
    [BibTex] 
    @Article{TUW-20170925,
Title = {Integrated system and control design of a one DoF nano-metrology platform},
Author = {Saathof, R. and Thier, M. and Heinisch, R. and Schitter, G.},
Journal = {Mechatronics},
Year = {2017},
Pages = {88-96},
Volume = {47},
Doi = {10.1016/j.mechatronics.2017.08.013}
}

Project partners

Funding

EU FP7 Project