Dexterous micromanipulation supporting cell and tissue engineering

A dexterous micromanipulation system consisting of a two-fingered micro hand, an auto-focusing optical microscope, an image processing system and user interfaces has been developed. The micro hand has 6 DOF: 3 DOF for each of two fingers. These fingers work just like thumb and forefinger. Thus this hand can grasp, move, rotate and release micro objects. A human operator can operate this hand using a joystick or a keyboard, while seeing the microscope image displayed on a TV monitor. The developed system enables automated recognition and handling of micro objects. The microscope focuses on a micro object automatically and detects its position in depth. The image processing system recognizes the object and measures its position on the focal plane. Then, while tracking the micro object in 3D space, the micro hand follows and captures the object automatically. Using an atomic force microscope (AFM) and this micro hand, the mechanical properties of living cells have been measured. A real-time micro VR camera system which generates 3D virtual model of micro environment has been also developed