Micro needle arrays have been widely used within medical contexts, such as for drug delivery and nervous electrodes, and its fabrication methods have attracted attention recently. This paper describes a novel fabrication method for micro needle arrays on a tungsten metal plate using only laser beam machining. Tungsten material was ablated as combining laser beam scanning path to control needle structure. Overlapping laser beams from the combined scanning path causes thermal accumulation phenomena which removes the material. In this paper, controlling laser scanning path (Line Interval, Line Space, Number of Lines) and machining conditions (Power, Number of Scan), and the changing length and pitch of the micro needles were measured through SEM. Moreover, the piercing force for application in drug delivery and nervous electrodes was measured with a load cell system.

In the Jet-Circulating electrodeposition, selective electrodeposition is done using the local circulation of the electrolyte. The Scale of fabricated patterns using the Jet-Circulating electrodeposition is dependent on the contact area between the nozzle and the workpiece surface through the electrolyte circulation. The shape of the electrolyte meniscus determines the contact area. The factors that influence the shape of the meniscus include the electrolyte jetting parameter and the characteristics of the workpiece surface. The jet distances are analyzed based on the shape of the electrolyte meniscus and contact area which is dependent on the jetting pressure and the suction pressure. In order to investigate the effect of contact area on the workpiece surface, the surface is treated using Hexamethyldisilazane spin coating, self-assembled monolayer formation, and Neverwet ® spray coating. The contact angle and the contact area based on the surface treatment methods are analyzed. The width of the copper patterns fabricated through Jet-Circulating electrodeposition are compared. The copper pattern width of the self-assembled monolayer formation surface had reduction of 30% in comparison to the untreated surface.

Multi-scale mass-deployable cooperative robots’ is a next generation robotics paradigm where a large number of robots that vary in size cooperate in a hierarchical fashion to collect information in various environments. While this paradigm can exhibit the effective solution for exploration of the wide area consisting of various types of terrain, its technical maturity is still in its infant state and many technical hurdles should be resolved to realize this paradigm. In this paper, we propose to develop new design and manufacturing methodologies for the multi-scale mass-deployable cooperative robots. In doing so, we present various fundamental technologies in four different research fields. (1) Adaptable design methods consist of compliant mechanisms and hierarchical structures which provide robots with a unified way to overcome various and irregular terrains. (2) Soft composite materials realize the compliancy in these structures. (3) Multi-scale integrative manufacturing techniques are convergence of traditional methods for producing various sized robots assembled by such materials. Finally, (4) the control and communication techniques for the massive swarm robot systems enable multiple functionally simple robots to accomplish the complex job by effective job distribution.

Omni-directional robot is a typical holonomic constraint robot that has three degrees of freedom movement in 2D plane. In this study, a new omni-directional robot whose wheels are arranged in radial directions was proposed to improve driving performance of the robot. Unlike a general omni-directional robot whose wheels were arranged in a circumferential direction, moments do not arises in the proposed robot when the robot travels in a straight line. To analyze driving performance, dynamic modeling of the omni-directional robot, which considers friction and slip, was carried out. By friction measurement experiments, the relationship between dynamic friction coefficient and relative velocity was derived. Dynamic friction coefficient according to the angle difference between robot travel direction and wheel rotation direction was also obtained. By applying these results to the dynamic model, driving performance of the robot was calculated. As a result, the proposed robot was 1.5 times faster than the general robot.

Small mobile robots which use round wheels are suitable for driving on a flat surface, but it cannot climb the obstacle whose height is greater than the radius of wheels. As an alternative, legged-wheels have been proposed by many researchers due to its better climbing performance. However, driving and climbing performances have a trade-off relationship so that their driving performance should be sacrificed. In this study, in order to achieve both driving and climbing performances, a new transformable wheel was developed. The developed transformable wheel can have a round shape on a flat surface and change its shape into legged-wheel when it makes a contact with an obstacle. For design of the transformable wheel, the performance of leggedwheel was analyzed with respect to the number and curvature of the leg, and then the new transformable wheel was designed based on the analysis. Contrary to the existing transformable wheels that contain additional actuators for the transformation, the developed transformable wheel can be unfolded without any additional actuator. In this study, in order to validate the transformable wheel, a simple robot platform was fabricated. Consequently, it climbed the obstacle whose height is 2.6 times greater than the wheel radius.