Modeling of a 16-DOF nanorobotics manipulators for multitask inside SEM

In this paper, a nanorobotics manipulation system with 16-DOF was constructed for 3D nanomanipulation of nanometer-scale objects inside a specimen chamber of the scanning electronic microscopes (SEM). Nanorobotics manipulators were divided into 4 units. Each unit was comprised of a X, Y, Z stage (Sigma, TSDS-255C), 4 Picomotors and an atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilever (Olympus, OMCL-TR400PB-1). Each manipulator has 4-DOF with 3 linear motions in X, Y, Z directions and a 360-degree rotational one (X-Y-Z-θ stage, θ is along the direction rotating with X or Y axis). Manipulators were actuated with picomotors with better than 30 nm linear resolution and <1micro-rad rotary resolution. Four AFM cantilevers serving as the end-effectors were vertically installed (the axis of the cantilever tip is vertical to the axis of electronic beam of SEM) to facilitate the real-time observation of operation. A series of kinematics derivations of these four manipulators based on the Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) notation were established. The working space of the four units was simulated in Matlab and a common working space of the end effector is calculated for 4.1mm by 4.1mm by 6mm. The experimental result showed that the carbon nanotubes can be successfully picked up with this nanorobotic manipulation system.