Evaluation of Telerobotic Shared Control Strategy for Efficient Single-Cell Manipulation

Abstract

Abstract-Microinjection using a glass capillary is a highly efficient method for the delivery of exogenous materials into cells and is widely used in biomedical research areas such as transgenics and genomics. However, this direct injection is a time-consuming and laborious task, resulting in low throughput and poor reproducibility. Here, we describe a telerobotic shared control framework for microinjection with high manipulation efficiencies, in which a micromanipulator is controlled by the shared motion commands of both the human operator and the autonomous controller. To determine the optimal gains between the operator and the controller, we proposed a quantitative evaluation method using a model of speed/accuracy trade-offs in human movement. The results showed that a 40-60 % weighting on the human operator (or the controller) produced the best performance for both speed and accuracy of task completion suggesting that some level of both automation and human involvement is important for microinjection tasks.Note to Practitioners-In single-cell microinjection, for the small size and delicate structure of a cell, to date, most human operators have manipulated biological cells manually; therefore, low manipulation efficiency and poor reproducibility has been reported for this task. Most manipulation systems have primarily focused on limited visual feedback in conjunction with a dialbased console system, requiring extensive operator training to perform injection tasks with reproducible results. To address these problems, a telerobotic shared control method for microinjection was developed by integrating the automatic and direct manipulation functions of a robotic system. While a controller retains cells and glass pipettes within a desired path or space, the operator can concentrate on the injection task, thus achieving high throughput and dexterity.

Micro-to-Nano Biomechanical Modeling for Assisted Biological Cell Injection

“…The development of computer-based systems using visual and force-feedback for both injection training and injection assistance will help to overcome some of these problems. Similar research on virtual reality environment platforms has been carried out at a macroscopic scale in surgery simulation and modeling of soft tissues [7], [8], [9]. By analogy to in vivo intracytoplasmic sperm injection, similar boundary conditions occur.…”

Haptic Feedback for Microrobotics Applications: A Review

“…To prevent the operator from overshooting the deposition location, a planar active constraint is also used. Kim et al (2012) described a shared-control framework for microinjection, in which a micromanipulator is controlled by the shared-motion commands of both the human operator and an autonomous controller. While the controller retains cells and glass pipettes within a desired path or space, the operator can concentrate on the injection task.…”

Navigation of Magnetic Microrobots With Different User Interaction Levels

“…On the other hand, automated procedures can enhance the performance of highly standardized and repetitive tasks [40], [41], because of their reduced time expenditure, and enhanced precision and reliability. Examples of applications that could particularly benefit from autonomous control are manipulation and injection processes.…”