Integrated Electronics for a 1cm3 Robot for Micro and Nanomanipulation Applications: MiCRoN

Micro and nanomanipulation are one of the key processes in bioengineering applications. Traditionally, standalone, static, expensive and big devices have been used for this purpose. In this paper, an innovative approach based on the use of a limited cluster of specialized microrobots working cooperatively is proposed and the driving electronics developed are presented. There are three types of specialized microrobots: manipulators (provided with a gripper), actuators (provided with a syringe) and scanners (provided with an AFM). Each robot is assembled and programmed depending on the specialized task that must perform in the cluster. To do that, a versatile and common electronics on board solution based on full custom integrated circuits has been developed for all the robots. Depending on the assigned task, the selected robot of the cluster gets the necessary orders to proceed whereas the rest can be programmed in a different way to do a complementary job in order to implement the cooperative approach