Gaze contingent control for optical micromanipulation

Abstract

Optical Tweezers (OT) have the advantage of non-contact interaction with target objects such as cells, overcoming the pitfall of obstructive adhesion forces which are present in contact micromanipulation. It is also feasible to manipulate a number of small microparts simultaneously or 3D structures by using multiple laser traps. These capabilities give rise to the potential to develop a human-robot interface to facilitate microassembly tasks. This paper presents a gaze contingent control framework and a method for 3D orientation estimation for optical micromanipulation. The proposed strategy aims to use OT as an interactive microassembly platform. The framework comprises I) a strategy to recognize the operator's intentions in order to interactively place and reconfigure the optical traps using the operator's eye fixation point, II) haptic constraints generated from the user's eye gaze to assist positioning of the assembled microparts and III) a method for 3D orientation estimation. The performance of the proposed framework is assessed through a set of experiments comparing it to the standard OT user interface. Three-dimensional manipulation and orientation estimation of a non-spherical microstructure are also performed.