Automated micro handling

Abstract

Biotechnologies demand high quality micro robotics including micromanipulation, micro machining, micro assembling, and other required micro operations. Most of them are done manually under microscope, and it might be an obstacle to increasing the efficiency of the operation. The automated micromanipulation (or automicromanipulation) system will be useful for reducing human tasks and improving the efficiency. We develop an auto-micromanipulation system including auto-calibration and auto-handling. Auto-calibration requires recognition of fingertip position in three-dimensional space. The fingertip position is detected by the combination of the one-dimensional search in depth using auto-focusing and the two-dimensional search in depth using auto-focusing and the two-dimensional search in the focused plane using the correlation matching. The color information processing is adopted for the auto-focusing. Using the calibrated micromanipulator, we achieved some micro tasks, picking up, rotating and so on. We developed an auto-micromanipulation system that can recognize and pick up a micro object automatically. The experimental results show the efficiency of our system.