Since Adam and Eve’s apple, gripping, handling and releasing objects has been a thoroughly human activity: the hand and fingers combine muscular action with sensing, complemented by feedback from visual monitoring. Modern automation technology, e.g. in production and micro assembly lines, is now facing the manipulation of extremely small objects, with dimensions typically smaller than the width of a human hair. As existing technologies are running out of steam in this range, industry is urgently looking for new handling concepts. The same holds true for handling delicate objects like battery electrodes and other flexible components – especially in vacuum. A central aspect of reliability will be the advent of new reliable technologies equipped with visual sensing – that is the heart of the project STICK2SEE.
Within the ERC Proof of Concept project "STICK2SEE", we successfully completed the steps before required for entering into a commercialization activity on our combined visual sensing and bioinspired adhesive system. All work-packages specified in the proposal were successfully executed. The performance of our new technology has been validated in lab with more than 100,000 cycles and a placement accuracy of down to 500 nm. Furthermore, the technology has shown its potential in “real world tests” in industry, especially regarding a new feature: sensing the quality of adhesion and using this for predictive maintenance by machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence.
Based on these results, we increased our visibility in relevant industries and entered into co-operation projects, which helped to develop our strategy for market entry. We do see two main markets; one being semiconductor and electronics industry, where parts to be handled become smaller and smaller, the other in handling flexible components like battery electrodes, where reliability is of utmost importance.
