Patent ID: 8393066

Claim:
An apparatus for assembling a miniaturized device, the apparatus comprising: a manipulator system including six manipulators, the manipulator system comprising a first plurality of motorized axes and a second plurality of manual axes, wherein the six manipulators are operable to position and orient components of the miniaturized device with submicron precision and micron-level accuracy, each of the six manipulators comprising: at least one translation stage operable to provide at least one translational degree of freedom; at least one rotation stage operable to provide at least one rotational degree of freedom; tooling attached to the at least one translation stage or the at least one rotation stage; and an attachment mechanism disposed at a distal end of the tooling and operable to attach at least a portion of the miniaturized device to the tooling; an optical coordinate-measuring machine (OCMM) comprising: a machine-vision system; a laser-based distance-measuring probe; and a touch probe operable to provide micron-level accuracy dimensional measurements of the miniaturized device; and an operator control system coupled to the manipulator system and the OCMM, wherein two of the six manipulators further comprise force/torque sensors mechanically coupled to the tooling and operable to provide force resolution at levels less than 10 grams and torque resolution at levels less than 500 gram-millimeters.