Simultaneous Vision-Based Shape and Motion Analysis of Cells Fast-Flowing in a Microchannel

This paper proposes a novel concept for simultaneous cell shape and motion analysis in fast microchannel flows by implementing a multiobject feature extraction algorithm on a frame-straddling high-speed vision platform. The system can synchronize two camera inputs with the same view with only a tiny time delay on the sub-microsecond timescale. Real-time video processing is performed in hardware logic by extracting the moment features of multiple cells in 512 × 256 images at 4000 fps for the two camera inputs and their frame-straddling time can be adjusted from 0 to 0.25 ms in 9.9 ns steps. By setting the frame-straddling time in a certain range to avoid large image displacements between the two camera inputs, our frame-straddling high-speed vision platform can perform simultaneous shape and motion analysis of cells in fast microchannel flows of 1 m/s or greater. The results of real-time experiments conducted to analyze the deformabilities and velocities of sea urchin egg cells fast-flowing in microchannels verify the efficacy of our vision-based cell analysis system.