Publications by Walter Driesen

Concept, modeling and experimental characterization of the modulated friction inertial drive (MFID) locomotion principle : application to mobile microrobots

A mobile microrobot is defined as a robot with a size ranging from 1 in3 down to 100 µm3 and a motion range of at least several times the robot's length. Mobile microrobots have a great potential for a wide range of mid-term and long-term applications such ...

EPFL2008

Friction based locomotion module for mobile MEMS robots

Jean-Marc Breguet, Reymond Clavel, Amar Rida, Walter Driesen

The “Modulated Friction Inertial Drive (MFID) principle” is presented as a locomotion solution for mmsize micro robots dealing with both size constraints and limitations in terms of power consumption. Based on one of the configurations of this locomotion p ...

2007

Applications of piezo-actuated micro-robots in micro-biology and material science

Jean-Marc Breguet, Tomas Cimprich, Walter Driesen

This paper presents a few examples of manipulators and micro-robots based on piezo-actuators developed during the last 4 years in the Laboratoire de Systèmes Robotiques (LSRO) at EPFL. Three working principles will be described (bender, inch-worm, inertial ...

2007

Solar Cell Powering with Integrated Global Positioning System for mm3 Size Robots

Alexis Boletis, Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen, Alberto Brunete

new concept of a solar cell powering with integrated Global Positioning System (GPS) for microrobots is proposed. The main idea is to use a projector to transfer energy and to provide global positioning information to the robots that are equipped with mult ...

2006

Ultrasonic monolithic piezoelectric multi DOF actuators for mobile microrobots

Jean-Marc Breguet, Tomas Cimprich, Walter Driesen

We propose a new type of “hybrid” ultrasonic driving principle for our monolithic piezoelectric actuators, which consist of simple electrode patterning on a PZT ceramic substrate The operating principle of the proposed USM is based on the conversion of ell ...

2006

A review on actuation principls for few cubic millimeter sized mobile micro-robots

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

Actuation systems for few cubic millimeter sized mobile autonomous robots are subject to severe constraints in terms of e.g. size, fabrication or power consumption. Also the onboard electronics has limited performance due to both size and power restriction ...

2006

Novel locomotion principle for mobile micro robots

Jean-Marc Breguet, Reymond Clavel, Walter Driesen

This paper presents a novel locomotion concept for mobile micro robots: the “friction drive principle”. It allows for easy miniaturization and high velocities for low power consumption and simple onboard electronics. A prototype (Ø20 mm × 7.5 mm) with two ...

2006

MICRON: Small Autonomous Robot for Cell Manipulation Applications

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

Manipulating in the micro- or even nano world still poses a great challenge to robotics. Conventional (stationary) systems suffer from drawbacks regarding integration into process supervision and multi-robot approaches, which become highly relevant to figh ...

2005

Flexible micro manipulation platform based on tethered cm3-sized mobile micro robots

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

This paper presents a micro manipulation platform based on several cm3-sized mobile micro robots. The proposed platform consists of a high resolution XY stage with the mobile micro robots on top of it, a camera with a microscopic objective for the local vi ...

2005

Micro manipulation by adhesion with two collaborating mobile micro robots

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

A micro manipulation platform consisting of two cubic centimeter sized micro robots each with four degrees of freedom has been developed. This paper discusses four different strategies of manipulation by adhesion for grasping, transferring and releasing a ...

2005

High resolution miniature rotary microactuator

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

For the development of high precision mobile microrobots with a size of about one cm3, capable of micromanipulation tasks, small and precise actuators have to be developed in order to provide the microrobot and its manipulation tools with the required degr ...

2004

Mobile cm3-microrobots with tools for nanoscale imaging and micromanipulation

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

This paper presents a microrobot concept for microhandling and micromanipulation, which has been developed within the framework of the EU founded project MiCRoN. The concept is explained along with some examples of realized modules for the robots and a num ...

2004

Position Feedback for Microrobots based on Scanning Probe Microscopy

Hannes Bleuler, Jean-Marc Breguet, Ashwin Lal, Walter Driesen

A cluster of small cooperative robots capable of executing measurement and manipulation tasks is being developed within the scope of a European project. The robots are autonomous and have an overall dimension in the order of 1 cm/sup 3/. In this paper we p ...

2004

Micro manipulation by adhesion with two collaborating mobile micro robots

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

A micro manipulation platform consisting of several cm3-sized 4 DOF micro robots has been developed by EPFL. This paper discusses four different strategies for grasping, transferring and releasing a micro object by manipulation by adhesion. The strategies ...

2004

Monolithic piezoelectric actuators for miniature robotic systems

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

2004

Development of Miniature Manipulators for Applications in Biology and Nanotechnologies

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

In the precision engineering industry, research and development is undertaken towards the development of microfactories, miniaturized environments for fabrication and assembly of small components. Micro handling and micromanipulation, especially in biology ...

2003

Energy Consumption of Piezoelectric Actuators for Inertial Drives

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

Energy consumption is a major issue for inertial drives with piezoelectric actuators that are integrated in autonomous devices. This paper discusses some theoretical aspects and some experimental results about the energy consumption of inertial drives with ...

2003

Monolithic piezoelectric push-pull actuators for inertial drives

Jean-Marc Breguet, Walter Driesen

In many miniature systems for positioning and especially in microrobotics the assembly of the components becomes difficult. At sizes of systems of a few cm2 not only the assembly becomes more difficult, downscaling also means that single parts become more ...

2003