Automated sensor-guided packaging of diamond tools

Automated, ultra-precise packaging strategies reduce production time and costs while increasing yield, quantity, and precision, making them one of the main research and development questions in the field of production technology. Fraunhofer IPT develops sensor-guided assembly solutions for packaging and testing of optical and non-optical components to meet the demand. In this paper, we present a prototypical process for the automated, ultra-precise passive alignment using the assembly of a diamond engraving tool as an example. The challenge is to place a diamond measuring three millimetres in its largest dimension into a groove of similar size and to position the tip of the diamond within tolerances of a few micrometres and arcminutes. This six dimensional assembly problem is tackled by feeding live camera data to an image processing algorithm and by aligning the diamond using Fraunhofer IPT's ultra-precise micromanipulator, collectively forming an automated, closed-loop assembly process. Thus, a fully automated packaging process with very high accuracy and reliability is proven to be technically possible.