MiCRoN

EU flag European Union 5th Framework Programme Project No: IST-2001-33567

Official website

The MiCRoN project was awarded on 8 March 2002 under the European Union Information Society Technologies (IST) 5th framework programme. It is a follow-up of the Miniman project. The MiCRoN project involves eight leading academic organisations throughout Europe. The total value awarded by the EU to the consortium is €2.175 million.

The main aim of the MiCRoN project is to take Miniman to the next level in miniaturisation. The robotic platforms that will be developed will push microassembly tasks closer to the nanometre range.

Project partners

Co-ordinator - University of Karlsruhe, Institute for Process Control and Robotics (IPR), Karlsruhe, Germany (main MiCRoN site)

Academic partners

• Sheffield Hallam University, School of Engineering, Sheffield, United Kingdom
• Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering (IBMT) St. Ingbert, Germany
• Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, MiTech Lab (SSSA), Pisa, Italy
• University of Barcelona, Departament d'Electrònica (EME), Barcelona, Spain
• Uppsala University, Department of Materials Science (DMS), Uppsala, Sweden
• Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Institut de Systemès Robotiques (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
• National Technical University of Athens, Control Systems Laboratory (NTUA), Athens, Greece

Publications related to MiCRoN (Sheffield Hallam only)

• Amavasai, B.P., Caparrelli, F., Selvan, A.N. and Travis J.R., Using microrobots for microassembly and micromanipulation, poster, Applications of Microtechnology, Nanotechnology and Precision Engineering, Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, Oxford, UK, 10-11 June 2002
• Amavasai, B.P., Caparrelli, F., Selvan, A.N. and Travis J.R., Miniature co-operative robots for micro and nano manipulation, poster, Transferring Microsystems Technology through the Commercial Markets, UK National Physics Laboratory, Teddington, UK, 14-15 April 2003
• Selvan, A.N., Boissenin, M., Amavasai, B.P., Caparrelli, F., and Travis J.R., Tracking Translucent Objects in Cluttered Scenes, IEEE Conference on Cybernetics Intelligence - Challenges and Advances, pp. 110-118, Reading, UK, 17 September 2003.
• Amavasai, B.P., Caparrelli, F., Selvan, A.N., Meikle, S. and Travis J.R., Control of a Cluster of Miniature Robots using Cybernetic Vision, IEEE Conference on Cybernetics Intelligence - Challenges and Advances, pp. 80-86, Reading, UK, 17 September 2003.
• Boissenin, M., Depth map and 3-D tracking, poster, 10th Annual EPSRC Summer School on Computer Vision, Guildford, 21-25 June 2004.
• Wedekind, J., Focus set based reconstruction of micro-objects, International IEEE Conference on Mechatronics and Robotics (MechRob'04), Aachen, Germany, 13-15 September 2004.
• Meikle, S., Amavasai, B.P., Caparrelli, F., Towards real-time object recognition using pairs of lines, Journal of Real-Time Imaging, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 31-43, 2005.
• Amavasai, B.P., Caparrelli, F., Selvan, A.N., Boissenin, M., Travis J.R. and Meikle, S., Machine vision methods for autonomous micro-robotic systems, Kybernetes: The International Journal of Systems and Cybernetics, Vol. 34, No. 9/10, pp. 1421-1439, 2005.

Seminars and talks

• Caparrelli, F., MiCRoN: Miniature Co-operative Robots Advancing Towards the Nano Range, Sheffield Hallam University, 4 December 2002.
• Amavasai, B.P., Mimas: a vision toolkit for real-time imaging, Sheffield Hallam University, 29 January 2003.
• Amavasai, B.P., Caparrelli, F., Selvan, A.N. and Travis J.R., Autonomous micro-robotic systems for micro-manipulation, Gillette Advanced Technology Centre (GATC UK), Reading, 16 May 2003.
• Boissenin, M., A particle filtering method for tracking translucent objects Sheffield Hallam University, 12 November 2003.

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