IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2013 - 70

while the microassembly task was simulating precise manipulation operations, such as within a human blood vessel.
A total of 11 teams registered, of which seven teams
were squared off in Shanghai this year, with new entrants
from the University of Hawaii, University of Texas at
Arlington, University of Maryland, and the Italian Institute
of Technology, and veterans from UW, the Stevens Institute
of Technology, and finally, the CNRS France.
The MagPieR microrobot team successfully competed this
year with an upgraded system featuring vision-based feedback
control. The mobility task record was set to 1.86 s with an average time of 2.2 s, enabling theMagPieR microrobot to again
reach first place. As perspectives, we noticed that
The MagPieR microrobot
with further optimized
control laws, the MagPieR's
team successfully
feedback dynamics and
precision might be significompeted this year with
cantly enhanced using a
combination of continuous
an upgraded system
and impulse driving. Other
works include exploring
featuring vision-based
the liquid environment.
Given the continuous
feedback control.
technology advances and
microscale requirements,
the MMC contest will gradually gain technical complexity as
well as popularity. Further advances are required in all fields,
including propulsion methods, autonomy, power management, sensing, and control. In the future, the teams will face
complex requirements, such as involving into multiagent tasks
on real-life environments that prove harsh and challenging at
this tiny scale.
In conclusion, when compared with the versatile centimeter-size miniature robots [2], we find that today's microrobots still lack internal power sources and autonomy. The real
microrobot concept probably depicts more of a mechanically
active or even inert agent controlled wirelessly by external
fields (mainly magnetic, electrostatic, and electromagnetic).
Processing units and related sensors remain completely
external. However, over the last decade, a net progress in
terms of miniaturization, maneuverability, and task complexity is clearly noticeable. First commercial applications [16] in
remote medical surgery and drug delivery are about to see
the daylight. Micron-size robots could also solve some of the
most important problems in micromanipulation at this scale.
Attractive areas involve microcomponents assembly by
means of wireless agents, which are expected to emerge in
the next few years.
References
[1] Robocup. [Online]. Available: http://www.robocup.org/
[2] [Online]. Available: http://imd.eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp/maze/index.html

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[3] [Online]. Available: http://icra2010.grasp.upenn.edu/?q= RobotChallenge
[4] [Online]. Available: http://www.nist.gov/pml/semiconductor/robots_
042710_program.cfm
[5] S. Floyd, C. Pawashe, and M. Sitti, "An untethered magnetically actuated
micro-robot capable of motion on arbitrary surfaces," in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf.
Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2008, pp. 419-424.
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[8] M. Kummer, J. J. Abbott, B. E. Kratochvil, R. Borer, A. Sengul, and B. J.
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[9] W. Jing, X. Chen, S. Lyttle, Z. Fu, Y. Shi, and D. Cappelleri, "Design of a
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Engineering Congress & Exposition, 12-18, Nov. 2010, pp. 599-607.
[10] S. L. Firebaugh and J. A. Piepmeier, "The RoboCup Nanogram League: An
opportunity for project-based undergraduate education in microsystems,"
IEEE Trans. Education, vol. 61, no. 3, pp. 394-399, Aug. 2009.
[11] M. R. Pac and D. O. Popa, "Laser-powered sub-mm untethered microrobots," in Proc. ASME Micro-Nano Systems Conf. (MNS at IDETC), Montreal,
QC, Aug. 2010, pp. 863-872.
[12] M. Kharboutly, M. Gauthier, and N. Chaillet, "Modeling the trajectory of
a micro particle in a dielectrophoresis device for dynamic control," in Proc.
IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation, 2010, pp. 4125-4130.
[13] G. Loget and A. Kuhn, "Propulsion of microobjects by dynamic bipolar selfregeneration," J. Am. Chem. Soc., vol. 132, no. 45, pp. 15918-15919, 2010.
[14] [Online]. Available: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/micro-robots-square-off-in-2millimeter-dash
[15] [Online]. Available: http://www.nist.gov/pml/semiconductor/mmc/
[16] [Online]. Available: http://www.aeon-scientific.com/

Ioan Alexandru Ivan, FEMTO-ST Institute, 24, Rue Alain
Savary, 25,000 Besançon, France or Valahia University, Bd.
Carol I, No. 2, 130024 Targoviste, Romania. E-mail: alex.
ivan@femto-st.fr or ivan@valahia.ro.
Gilgueng Hwang, Laborator y for Photonics and
Nanostructures, CNRS, 91460 Marcoussis, France. E-mail:
gilgueng.hwang@lpn.cnrs.fr.
Joel Agnus, FEMTO-ST Institute, 24, Rue Alain Savary, 25000
Besançon, France. E-mail: joel.agnus@ens2m.fr.
Nicolas Chaillet, FEMTO-ST Institute, 24, Rue Alain Savary,
25,000 Besançon, France. E-mail: nicolas.chaillet@ femto-st.fr.
Stéphane Régnier, University Pierre et Marie Curie, CC 173-4
Place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France. E-mail: stephane.regnier@
upmc.fr.
http://icra2010.grasp.upenn.edu/?q http://www.nist.gov/pml/semiconductor/robots_ http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/indus http://www.nist.gov/pml/semiconductor/mmc/ http://www.aeon-scientific.com/ http://www.robocup.org/ http://imd.eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp/maze/index.html
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2013
