Overview of the development of a visual based automated bio-micromanipulation system

The development of an automated bio-micromanipulation system provides high manipulation rates with optimal reproducibility and makes quantitative bio-micromanipulation possible. Visual-servo control is necessary for realizing automated bio-micromanipulation and increasing accuracy of micromanipulator. We have developed a dual-hand bio-micromanipulation system with micro-visual-servo control to realize automated cell manipulation targeting on the biotechnology application. This paper overviews this development, including the discussion of (1) the framework and a prototype of the automated bio-micromanipulation system, (2) the design and control of the micromanipulators, (3) the micro-visual-servo architecture, modeling of image Jacobian and recognition algorithms of microobjects, and (4) the experiment to validate various concepts proposed. A compliant mechanism with three degrees of freedom driven by PZT actuators is designed and implemented to realize the fine motion of the micro-injection with nanometer resolution. The design and control issues about the micromanipulators are discussed in detail. Different image processing algorithms are designed for the recognition of the cell and the end-effectors of the micromanipulators in the micro-visual-servo control system. The experimental results of microcircle trajectory tracking and automatic transgenic operations demonstrate the effectiveness of the micro-visual-servo solution for the automated bio-micromanipulation system. 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.