Vincent's Research

Research Interest

Mechatronic systems design and control, microsystems, robotics, compliant structures.

Ph.D. Thesis

Design, Fabrication and Control of a
planar, non-redundant, MEMS Digital Microrobot

October 2009 - March 2013

Supervisors:

Funding: Direction Générale de l'Armement
Defended: 8th March 2013

Jury:

Hervé Tanneguy Redarce (INSA Lyon, France)
Skandar Basrour (TIMA Grenoble, France)
Philippe Poignet (LIRMM Montpellier, France)
Reymond Clavel (EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland)
Patrice Le Moal (FEMTO-ST Besançon, France)
Rose-Marie Sauvage (DGA Paris, France)

A Digital Microrobot (DiMiBot) with 4 bistable modules.

Thesis abstract

With the current expansion of micro- and nano-technologies (in such domains as watchmaking, electronics, optics, biomedical, ...), came the necessity to build systems able to manipulate and make the assembly of smaller objects. Design of robotic stations, able to manipulate micro-objects, expanded all over the world, making use of high resolution actuators and numerous sensors adapted to the microworld.
This thesis opens a new paradigm in the design of micromanipulation robotics. We present the design, modeling, fabrication and control of a new microrobot, the DiMiBot (Digital MicroroBot). It is the first digital microrobot -- inspired form digital electronics -- which makes use of binary actuators for the generation of discrete displacements with high accuracy without any sensors (open-loop control). These highly repeatable and robust binary actuators (bistable modules) generate an accurate displacement of 25 μm. They are monolithically combined with a parallel flexible architecture, allowing the generation of a discrete workspace, in which all the 2^N (N is the number of bistable modules used) distinct reachable positions are perfectly stable, repeatable and mechanically robust. They are evenly spread inside a 10.5 μm length square.
After dimensioning, the first digital microrobot prototype in silicon was microfabricated in MIMENTO clean-room of FEMTO-ST institute. This DiMiBot has 4 bistable modules and generates a workspace of 3.5 μm resolution with 90 nm repeatability

Keywords

microrobot, digital, open-loop control, microfabrication, flexible structure, bistable structure.

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Publication List

Journal

D.J. Braun, V. Chalvet, T.-H. Chong, S.S. Apte and N. Hogan , "Variable Stiffness Spring Actuators for Low Energy Cost Human Augmentation", IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol. 35, No.6, pp. 1435-1449, 2019.

D.J. Braun, V. Chalvet and A. Dahiya, "Positive-Negative Stiffness Actuators", IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 162-173, 2018.

V. Chalvet and D.J. Braun, "Algorithmic design of low power variable-stiffness mechanisms", IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol. 33, No. 6, pp. 1508-1515, 2017.

V. Chalvet and D.J. Braun, "Criterion for the design of low power variable stiffness mechanisms", IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 1002-1010, 2017.

V. Chalvet, Y. Haddab and P. Lutz, "Trajectory planning for micromanipulation with a non redundant digital microrobot: shortest path algorithm optimization with a hypercube graph representation", ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 021013, 2016.

V. Chalvet, D. Habineza, M. Rakotondrabe and C. Clévy, "Presentation and characterization of novel thick-film PZT microactuators", Physica B: Condensed Matter, 2015.

A. Bienaimé, V. Chalvet, C. Clévy, L. Gauthier-Manuel, T. Baron and M. Rakotondrabe, "Static / dynamic trade-off performance of PZT thick film micro-actuators", Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering (JMM), Vol. 25, No. 7, pp. 075017, 2015.

V. Chalvet, Y. Haddab and P. Lutz, "A microfabricated planar digital microrobot for precise positioning based on bistable modules", Journal IEEE Transaction on Robotics, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 641-649

International Conference

T.-H. Chong, V. Chalvet, and D.J. Braun,"Analytical conditions for the design of variable stiffness mechanisms", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Singapore, SG, 2017.

H. Hussein, V. Chalvet, Y. Haddab, P. Lutz, P. Le Moal and G. Bourbon, "Design optimization of bistable modules electrothermally actuated for digital microrobotics", IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), Besançon, FR, 2014, pp. 1273-1278.

V. Chalvet, A. Zarzycki, Y. Haddab, and P. Lutz, "Digital microrobotics based on bistable modules: design of a non-redundant digital micropositioning robot", proc. of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Shanghai, ZH, 2011, pp. 3628-3633.

Book Chapters

Y. Haddab, V. Chalvet and M. Rakotondrabe, "Open-loop control approaches to compliant micromanipulators", a chapter in "Flexible Robotics: Application to multiscale manipulations", edited by Mathieu Grossard, Nicolas Chaillet and Stéphane Régnier, John Wiley & Sons,ISBN 978-1-84821-520-7, July 2013.

Y. Haddab, V. Chalvet and M. Rakotondrabe, "Approches de commande en boucle ouverte pour les micro-manipulateurs flexibles à base de matériaux actifs", a chapter in "Robotique flexible: manipulation multi-échelle", edited by Mathieu Grossard, Nicolas Chaillet and Stéphane Régnier, Hermes Science, ISBN 9782746245099, July 2013.

Y. Haddab, V. Chalvet, Q. Chen and P. Lutz, "Digital microrobotics using MEMS technology" a chapter in "Advanced Mechatronics and MEMS Devices", Springer, ISBN 978-1-4419-9984-9, August 2012.

Patent

V. Chalvet, Y. Haddab, A. Zarzycki and P. Lutz, "Microrobot and associated control method, simulation method, and computer programs", WO/2012/104546 - Filing Date: January 2012.

Talks

V. Chalvet, Y. Haddab and P. Lutz, "Digital Microrobot based on bistable modules. New paradigm in design of microrobots for precise micromanipulation", μ-Control Workshop, Besançon, France, June 2012.

V. Chalvet, Y. Haddab and P. Lutz, "La microrobotique pour la micromanipulation en milieu confiné", Journée des Jeunes Chercheurs en Robotique, La Rochelle, France, October 2011.