The Nanorobotics Project

A large new nanotechnology research programme Nanorobotics - technologies for simultaneous multidimensional imaging and manipulation of nanoobjects (grant GR/S85696/01 and grant GR/S85689/01) is to be established at Sheffield University from Autumn 2004 funded by a Â£2.3Millon grant from the RCUK Basic Technology Research Programme. The programme led by the Engineering Materials Department of the University of Sheffield, will be a collaboration between the University of Sheffield (project leader), Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Nottingham.

Many new nanotechnology research fields require a high degree of precision in both observing and manipulating materials at the atomic level. The advanced nanorobotics technology needed to manipulate materials at this scale, a million times smaller than a grain of sand, will be developed in the new Sheffield Nanorobotics group. The integration of different technologies to act as simultaneous real-time nanoscale "eyes" and "hands", including the advanced nanorobotics, high-resolution ion/electron microscopy, image processing/vision control and sophisticated sensors, will lead to the ability to manipulate matter at the scale of atoms or molecules.

The Nanorobotics programme will thus allow unique experiments to be carried out on the manipulation and observation of the smallest quantities of materials, including research into nanoscale electronic, magnetic and electromechanical devices, manipulation of fullerenes and nanoparticles, nanoscale friction and wear, biomaterials, and systems for carrying out quantum information processing.

The project's deadline is December 2008.

Controls of JEOL 3010 microscope

MMVL

The workpackage of the MMVL is to

provide real-time position feed-back for controlling the nano-indenter
- using input from S-Video- or alternatively Firewire-camera
- estimate x- and y-position of the tip
- estimate the depth of the tip using x- or y-image wobbling (this is a common technique for manually focussing on an object already)
User-interface for telemanipulation and automated tasks
Correlate AFM- with TEM-images

Further projects beyond the workpackage

assist in hardness measurements by applying optic flow estimation on TEM videos
automatise the measurements, which were done manually in context of this publication
- estimation of drift
- estimate movement of tip
- determine object-boundaries
measure fix-point and accuracy of rotary drives