Micro/Nano Scale Manufacturing Control

The following ARG students are currently conducting research in the field of micro/nano scale manufacturing control.


Ashley Armstrong: Dynamic Modeling and Control of a Micro Robotic Deposition System
Dynamic modeling and control of a Micro Robotic Deposition System, with bone scaffold manufacturing as the target application. In this research, precision motion control techniques will be explored to achieve the high levels of precision and response time demanded by microscale applications. Movement coordination between two additive manufacturing extrusion heads will be used to print bone scaffolds with advanced architecture.

Spencer Igram: Additive Manufacturing of Superparamagnetic Components
Profile - Spencer Igram

    Synthesis of an advanced Iterative Learning Control is applied to a Micro Robotic Deposition System for high precision motion control. Passive magnetic structures are our target application of this additive manufacturing research.

Nathan Weir: Precision Motion Control
My research focuses on the development of precision motion control strategies for inertially stabilized pointing systems. Precision pointing systems are used to aim and stabilize sensitive instrument or sensor payloads for a variety of applications including photography, videography, astronomy, remote sensing, and communications. The jitter requirements for future systems grow more demanding as higher resolution sensors become available. Pointing systems that require a large field of regard and high precision are often limited in performance with conventional bearing technologies. This research seeks to advance the state of the art of precision stabilization systems through the design, analysis, and experimental evaluation of a novel hybrid flexure bearing concept to minimize the effects of nonlinear friction that typically degrade jitter performance in systems with conventional ball bearing joints.

 

Other Research Areas:

Electrohydrodynamic Jet Printing
Nano and micro-manufacturing has emerged as a critical component of nano and micro systems technology. Along with an increasing variety of available materials comes a need for increasingly sophisticated manufacturing platforms capable of utilizing said materials at higher and higher levels of resolution. Electrohydrodynamic jet (E-jet) printing uses an electric field to induce fluid flows from micro capillary nozzles to create devices in the micro/nano-scale range.The figure below  presents the basic components of an E-jet printer and the video showcases the camera view (10x) of the E-Jet printing process in real time fashion.E-Jet Schematic

E-Jet printing has emerged as a high resolution alternative to other forms of direct solution-based fabrication approaches, such as ink-jet printing. The diameter of an E-Jet Printed droplet ranges from several hundreds of nanometer up to a few microns. Depending on the application, E-Jet printer can either produce discrete droplets or continuous lines. In the past decade, there has been various application for E-Jet printing, primarily for biosensing and printed electronics application.E-Jet ApplicationJournal Publications

  • E. Sutanto, Y. Tan, B.T. Cunningham, A.G. Alleyne, “Multimaterial E-Jet Printed Micro-optical Devices”, Manufacturing Letters (submitted)
  • Y. Tan, E. Sutanto, A.G. Alleyne, B.T. Cunningham, “Sensitive Fluorescent Homogeneous Assay Using Photonic Crystal Enhanced Fluorescence in an E-jet Printed Submicron-channel”, Biophotonics, 2013 (submitted)
  • M. S. Onses, C. Song, L. Williamson, E. Sutanto, P.M. Ferreira, A.G. Alleyne, P.F. Nealey, H. Ahn, J.A. Rogers,”Hierarchical Patterns of Three Dimensional Block-Copolymer Films Formed by Electrohydrodynamic Jet Printing and Self-Assembly”, Nature Nanotechnology, 2013. (Link)
  • K. Shigeta, Y. He, E. Sutanto. S. Kang, A.P. Le. R.G. Nuzzo, A.G. Alleyne, P.M. Ferreira, Y. Lu, J.A. Rogers, “Functional Protein Microarrays by Electrohydrodynamic Jet Printing”, Analytical Chemistry, 2012. (Link)
  • E. Sutanto, K. Shigeta, Y.K. Kim, P.G. Graf, D.J. Hoelzle, K.L. Barton, A.G. Alleyne, P.M. Ferreira, J.A. Rogers, “A Multimaterial Electrohydrodynamic Jet (E-Jet) Printing System”, Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 2011. (Link)

Conference Publications:

  • E. Sutanto, A.G. Alleyne, “Iterative Learning Control for 2-D Image Based Visual Servoing Application”, in American Control Conference, 2014. (Submitted)
  • Y. Tan, E. Sutanto, A.G. Alleyne, B.T. Cunningham, “Photonic Crystal Enhancement of a Homogeneous Fluorescent Assay using Submicron Fluid Channels Fabricated by E-jet Patterning”, in SPIE BiOS, 2014 (submitted)
  • E. Sutanto, A.G. Alleyne, “Norm Optimal Iterative Learning Control for a Roll to Roll Nano/Micro-Manufacturing System”, in American Control Conference, 2013. (Link)
  • E. Sutanto, K. Shigeta, K.L. Barton, A.G. Alleyne, and J.A. Rogers, “A High Throughput Electrohydrodynamic Jet System,” in ISFA, St. Louis, 2012. (Link)
  • E. Sutanto, K. Shigeta, D.J. Hoelzle, A.G. Alleyne, and J.A. Rogers, “Micropositioning of a Multimaterial Electrohydrodynamic Jet Deposition System Using Vision Feedback,” in Dynamic System and Control Conference, Arlington, 2011. (Link)
  • P.G. Graf, E. Sutanto, K.L. Barton, A.G. Alleyne, and P.M. Ferreira, “High-Resolution Electrohydrodynamic Jet Printing System,” in North American Manufacturing Research Conference , Corvallis, 2011. (Link)