Research

My research activities are focused on the study and implementation of robotic and mechatronic principles and methods for action at micro- and nanometric scales. At these scales, the objects of interest range in size from a few tens of nanometers to a few hundreds of micrometers. The objects considered are numerous, ranging from natural objects (such as biomass fibers) to synthetic components with exceptional properties (nanotubes, crystals, metamaterials, optical components, etc.). A detailed understanding of the behavior of these different objects, and their integration into more complex products (opening up to 3D, densification, miniaturization), is currently a major challenge for both scientific and industrial reasons, in numerous fields such as materials, biomedical, instrumentation and chemistry.

In this context, my research activities involve studying and implementing robotic principles enabling finely controlled tasks to be carried out for the characterization, manipulation and assembly of micro- and nanometric objects. At these scales, robotics appears to be a particularly original and promising solution, because it offers the main alternative for locally touching or deforming matter in a controlled and versatile way - unlike at the human scale, where we can decide to carry out manipulation tasks by hand if they are too complex, or robotize them if they are simple and repetitive.  However, this approach is also particularly complex because the predominant physical effects at these scales are not at all the same as at the human scale. These observations have led me to establish a working methodology that is heavily dependent on experimental validation usefull to understand the reality of influential phenomena, model them precisely and identify their parameters. Within this framework, my activities are organized into two complementary areas of research:

• Axis1: Study of robotic control strategies for ultra-precise positioning and assembly tasks using commercial micropositioning systems. We proposed breakthrough measurement principles capable, for the first time, of measuring microrobotic movements and interaction forces between a robot and its environment. Thanks to this type of work, we have been able to understand the importance of many phenomena, model them and propose robotic control laws based on the principles of robotic calibration and robust hybrid force-position control. This work has enabled us to establish unique and ground-breaking performances in terms of positioning accuracy (a few nanometers), making it possible to create unique assemblies of nanophotonic components, or to carry out highly precise measurements to characterize natural fibers or wear particles.