Micro patterns are used to maximize the performance and efficiency of the product in many industries such as energy, display, printing, biology, etc. Nowadays, the fabrication technology for micro patterns has been developed in various ways such as photolithography, laser machining, electrical discharge machining and mechanical machining. Recently, mechanical machining the size of smaller than 1 micrometer could be tried, because the technology related to the machining was developed brilliantly. This paper shows the experiments using cutting processes in order to fabricate the micro pattern. Micro patterns of the size of several micrometers were machined by the diamond tools of two different shape, the deformation and generation of burr were investigated.

Diffractive optical elements (DOEs) ? in general a complex pattern of micro- and nano-scale structures ? can modulate and transform light in a predetermined way. Their importance is being increased nowadays because they can be designed to handle a number of simultaneous tasks. In view point of machining DOEs, it is a big challenge to fabricate micro- and nano-scale structures on a free-form surfaces. In this paper, the state-of-the-art of the ultra-precision machine tools is reviewed. Also some technical issues which determine the machine tool accuracy are discussed.

We propose a new variant of lateral shearing interferometer with a tunable laser source that enables 3D surface profile measurements of freeform optics with high speed, high vertical resolution, large departure, and large field-of-view. We have verified the proposed technique by comparing our measurement result with that of an existing technique and measuring a representative sample of freeform optics. Moreover, we propose a new algorithm that is able to compensate the rotational inaccuracy.

A study was carried out to fabricate the cutting tool geometry with micro/nanoscale on the single crystal diamond tool by using the FIB. The FIB technique is an ideal tool for TEM sample preparation that allows for the fabrication of electron-transparent foils. The FIB is appropriate techniques to sample and subsequently define the chemical composition and the structural state of mineral inclusion on the micro/nanoscale. The combination of FIB with a SEM allows for 3D information to be obtained from samples including 3D imaging. Cutting strategies were demonstrated to improve the performance of cutting tool geometry and to generate high aspect ratio micro cutting tool. A finely focused beam of 30keV Ga+ ions was used to mill cutting tool shapes for various micro patterns. Therefore FIB sputtering is used to shape a variety of cutting tools with dimensions in the 1-5㎛range and cutting edge radii of curvature of under 50nm.

This paper presents an experimental study of a vibration-assisted dry micro-wire electrical discharge machining (μ-WEDM) utilized in high precision and micro-manufacturing area. The assisted vibration was applied to the workpiece using a piezoelectric actuator, and high pressure air was injected directly into the machining gap through a nozzle. Investigation experiments were performed to estimate the importance of input parameters and it was observed from experiment results that the width (kerf) of the cutting slot and the machining time were significantly affected by the air injection pressure and input energy. Moreover, it was also observed that there exists an optimal relationship between the machining time and input parameters including the air pressure and vibration frequency and amplitude. Central composite design based experiments were also carried out, and empirical models of the machining time and cutting slot kerf have been developed using the response surface methodology to analyze and optimize the process.

An inductive sensor system is proposed to detect the gear location and angular position of a geared shaft for automatic feeding of the shaft into the proper cutting position of the other end. The system consists of two set of coils, bridge circuit, signal condition circuit, and microprocessor. The coil sensors of the system measure changes of inductance along with the surface position of a geared shaft. The inductance changes are transformed to voltages by the bridge circuit, which are then conditioned and processed for the recognition of the gear. In order to incorporate with the experimental results with the sensor system, a finite element method (FEM) simulation for the magnetic field between the sensor and the shaft was carried out. The predicted results and the experiments revealed that the sensor system was appropriate for sensing the position of gear and the angular position of gear tooth of a geared shaft.

This paper contributes to development of a new method for detecting rear-side vehicles and estimating the positions for blind spot region or providing the lane change information by using vision systems. Because the real image acquired during car driving has a lot of information including the target vehicle and background image as well as the noises such as lighting and shading, it is hard to extract only the target vehicle against the background image with satisfied robustness. In this paper, the target vehicle has been detected by repetitive image processing such as sobel and morphological operations and a Kalman filter has been also designed to cancel the background image and prevent the misreading of the target image. The proposed method can get faster image processing and more robustness rather than the previous researches. Various experiments were performed on the highway driving situations to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

In inference fit assembly process of the industrial robot, it basically needs the force data. One of the typical methods to get the force data is attaching torque sensors on the robot arm joint or end effector. This is effective way to reduce time delay and to improve preciseness of force control, but this method has several problems. To solve that problem, this paper suggests method which measures assembly force without torque sensor by using the sliding perturbation observer(SPO) and assembly process based on SPO to assemble successfully in inference assembly.

This study proposes a map-based control method to improve a vehicle’s lateral stability, and the performance of the proposed method is compared with that of the conventional model-referenced control method. Model-referenced control uses the sliding mode method to determine the compensated yaw moment; in contrast, the proposed map-based control uses the compensated yaw moment map acquired by vehicle stability analysis. The vehicle stability region is calculated by a topological method based on the trajectory reversal method. The performances of modelreferenced control and map-based control are compared under various road conditions and driving inputs. Model-referenced control uses a control input to satisfy the linear reference model, and it generates unnecessary tire lateral forces that may lead to worse performance than an uncontrolled vehicle with step steering input on a road with low friction coefficient. The simulation results show that map-based control provides better stability than model-referenced control.

Precision screws have a wide range of industrial applications such as electrical and automotive products. To produce screw threads with high precision, not only high precision manufacturing technology but also reliable measurement technology is required. Machine vision systems have been used in the automatic inspection of screw threads based on backlight illumination, which cannot detect defects on the thread surface. Recently, an omnidirectional inspection system for screw threads was developed to obtain 360o images of screws, based on front light illumination. In this study, the illumination design for the omnidirectional inspection system was modified by adding a light shield to improve the image uniformity. Optical simulation for various shield designs was performed to analyze image uniformity of the obtained images. The simulation results were analyzed statistically using response surface method, from which optical performance of the omnidirectional inspection system could be optimized in terms of image quality and uniformity.

Conventional machining technologies such as a milling process have limitations in accuracy to fabricate microstructures. Deep X-ray lithography using the synchrotron radiation is a promising micromachining process with an excellent accuracy, whereas there are difficulties in the fabrication of multi-layered structures. Therefore, it is mainly used for fabricating simple monolayered microstructures with a high aspect ratio. In this study, a novel technology for fabricating multi-layered microstructures is proposed by combining two processes. In advance, an X-ray resist material is cut and machined into various shapes and heights by the micro milling process. Subsequent X-ray irradiation process facilitates the fabrication of multi-layered microstructures. The proposed technology can overcome the limitation of the pattern accuracy in conventional milling process and the difficulty of the multi-layered machining in x-ray process. The usefulness of the proposed technology is demonstrated in this study by applying the technique in the realization of various multi-layered microstructures.

This paper presents the design, optimization and fabrication of a piezo driven micro-positioning stage constructed using a 3D-printer. 3D printing technology provides many advantageous aspects in comparison to traditional manufacturing techniques allowing more rapid prototyping freedom in design, etc. Micro-positioning stages have traditionally been made using metal materials namely aluminum. This paper investigates the possibility of fabricating stages using ABS material with a 3D printer. CAE simulations show that equivalent motion amplification can be achieved compared to a traditional aluminum fabricated stage while the maximum stress is 30 times less. This leads to the possibility of stages with higher magnification factors and less load on the driving piezo element. Experiment results agree with the simulation results. A microposition stage was fabricated using a 3D printer with ABS material. The motion amplification is very linear and 50 nm stepping was demonstrated.