IMAGE GUIDED AUTOMATED NON-PREHENSILE MAGNETIC MICROMANIPULATION OF CELLS

摘要

Biomedical applications like cell manipulation and targeted drug delivery require automated micro-manipulation of biological material. Magnetic micro-manipulation has high actuation speed and minimal adverse effect on cell viability. Ferromagnetic particles, actuated via magnetic field, are used to push a target cell. The process is however cumbersome therefore require automation. This paper reports design, fabrication, and control of an image guided automated non-prehensile magnetic micromanipulation system. The developed system consists of ferromagnetic microspheres (henceforth referred to as microbots) which are actuated via independently controlling currents in four solenoids placed in a quadrupole configuration. We use image based localization for determining the microbot and target cell locations. We developed feedback planner which invokes either of the two maneuvers, namely, push or align to move microbot in order to push the cell towards the goal location. Instead of customize microtools we use simple spherical shaped microbots for pushing target cells.