Bubble-based assembly of micro-tube with coordinated multiple manipulators

Abstract

Assembly of a micro-tube with small diameter attracts great interest due to its promising contribution on vascular network to deliver oxygen and nutrition in thick biological substitutes. This paper presents a dexterous robotic system with three manipulators to reconstruct the interested micro-tube based on the interaction between bubbles and 2D hydrogel micro-units. Each manipulator has 3 degrees of freedom (DOFs), but they are equipped with different endeffectors for unique tasks under an inverted optical microscope (OM). Strategy of their coordinated operation is integrated under visual feedback. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed system, we conduct experiments on 2D hydrogel micro-units to achieve assembly of a 3D micro-channel for tissue engineering. Preliminary experimental results show that our assembly method is flexible and efficient.