Title: Development of vision controlled bio-cell manipulation system

Authors: Libo Zhou, Zhongjun Qiu, Tomohiko Ishikawa, Tatsuo Kawakami, Hiroshi Eda

Addresses: Department of System Engineering, Ibaraki University, 4–12–1 Nakanarusawa, Hitachi 316–8511, Japan. ' Department of System Engineering, Ibaraki University, 4–12–1 Nakanarusawa, Hitachi 316–8511, Japan. ' Sanyu Manufacturing Ltd., 457 Baba-cho, Hitachi-Ohta, 313–0004, Japan. ' Sanyu Manufacturing Ltd., 457 Baba-cho, Hitachi-Ohta, 313–0004, Japan. ' Department of System Engineering, Ibaraki University, 4–12–1 Nakanarusawa, Hitachi 316–8511, Japan

Abstract: There are increasing demands of manipulation on bio-cells for cloning and artificial insemination in bio-engineering. However, most commercialised tools are manual or semi-automatic. The operations are tedious and time consuming, yet with very low yield rate. The objective of this research is to develop an automated manipulation system with high performance and repeatability for the biological applications. In this paper, a vision control scheme has been proposed and implemented to steer the movements of the tool arms. The positions of the targets and tools, the paths and speed of the movement are calculated at the pixel coordinate by use of an optical microscope with a CCD image device. This vision control scheme is able to eliminate mechanical inaccuracy including misalignment, hysteresis and drift. The pixel coordinate is also commonly shared by multiple tool arms and targeted objects, and essential to achieve smooth cooperative operations. A field test of following a cycle as small as 3 mm in diameter result was carried out to show the performances in accuracy and repeatability.

Keywords: biocell manipulators; cloning technology; pixel coordinates; motion control; cooperative operation; vision control; biocells; automated manipulation; bioengineering; misalignment; hysteresis; drift; manipulator cooperation; manipulator control; accuracy; repeatability; cell manipulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2006.009991

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2006 Vol.9 No.1/2, pp.130 - 143

Published online: 06 Jun 2006 *

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