Abstract
Accurate control and precise positioning of opto-thermocapillary flow-addressed bubble microrobots are necessary for micromanipulation. In addition, micromanipulation using the simultaneous actuation of multiple microrobots requires a robust control system to enable independent motion. This paper demonstrates a hybrid closed-loop vision-assisted control system capable of actuating multiple microrobots simultaneously and positioning them at precise locations relative to micro-objects under manipulation. A vision-assisted grasp-planning application was developed and used to calculate the necessary trajectories of the microrobots to form cages around micro-objects. The location of the microrobots and the micro-objects was detected at the caging locations using a particle-tracking application that used image feedback for precise positioning. The closed-loop image feedback information enabled the position update of the microrobots, allowing them to precisely follow the trajectory and caging locations calculated by the grasp-planning application. Four microrobots were assigned to cage a star-shaped micro-object using the closed-loop control system. Once caged, the micro-object was transported to a location within the workspace and uncaged, demonstrating the micromanipulation task. This microrobotic system is well suited for the micromanipulation of single cells.
Highlights
Microrobots in a liquid medium are an efficient tool for bio-micromanipulation
Closed‐loop actuation of a single microrobot One of the benefits of the closed-loop control of opto-thermocapillary flow-addressed bubble (OFB) microrobots is the ability to accurately update the position of the microrobot using data from the image-processing algorithm
A hybrid closed-loop vision-assisted control system was developed in MATLAB and LabVIEW to control multiple OFB microrobots automatically
Summary
Microrobots in a liquid medium are an efficient tool for bio-micromanipulation. They have broad applications in biological engineering [1,2,3,4], biomedical engineering [5, 6], and tissue engineering [7, 8]. One significant challenge to controlling many microrobots independently is the use of a global actuation force, as employed by magnetic microrobots [9, 23] and bio-inspired magnetic swimming microrobots [6, 24]. (2017) 4:7 magnetic [29], acoustic [30], or a combination of these forces [31] is capable of parallel control, but complex motion, such as actuation along multiple trajectories, is more difficult [32] Biomim. (2017) 4:7 magnetic [29], acoustic [30], or a combination of these forces [31] is capable of parallel control, but complex motion, such as actuation along multiple trajectories, is more difficult [32]
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