Fundamental Principles and Issues of High-speed Piezoactuated Three-legged Motion for Miniature Robots Designed for Nanometer-scale Operations

One of the important aspects in the development of high-throughput platforms based on a fleet of scientific instruments in the form of miniature wireless robots designed for fast operations at the nanometer-scale, is the conception of an embedded locomotion system capable of fast displacements between two successive locations while being accurate enough to position the robot within the range of the embedded instrument, typically within a few tenths of nanometers. This paper describes not only the fundamental principles of the locomotion method and mechanisms but the main constraints, challenges, and environmental conditions that must be taken into account in the implementation of such a system. Preliminary experimental results show the validity of this approach.