Cell micromanipulation with an active handheld micromanipulator

Abstract

The paper describes the use of an active handheld micromanipulator, known as Micron, for micromanipulation of cells. The device enables users to manipulate objects on the order of tens of microns in size, with the natural ease of use of a fully handheld tool. Micron senses its own position using a purpose-built microscale optical tracker, estimates the erroneous or undesired component of hand motion, and actively corrects it by deflecting its own tool tip using piezoelectric actuators. Benchtop experiments in tip positioning show that active compensation can reduce positioning error by up to 51% compared to unaided performance. Preliminary experiments in bisection of sea urchin embryos exhibit an increased success rate when performed with the help of Micron.

State estimation and feedforward tremor suppression for a handheld micromanipulator with a Kalman filter

“…Micron, the micromanipulator built in our lab, is a fully handheld micromanipulator with actuators between the handle and the tip of the instrument [6]. By offsetting the tip relative to the handle, Micron is able to compensate for a surgeon’s tremor [7]. …”

“…While the focus of this paper is not on how to best select the set point, it can be generated by a tremor-compensation filter [7], virtual fixtures [8], or other behaviors [9, 10]. Once the set point has been generated by a higher-level control system, the low-level control system attempts to track the set point with the tip of instrument.…”

“…Micron (Figure 1) is a 3 degree of freedom (DOF), fully handheld micromanipulator [6, 7] with three piezoelectric actuators mechanically coupling the tip and handle of the instrument. By actuating these motors, the instrument tip is able to move with respect to the handle in a 2×2×1 mm range of motion to cancel tremor, snap to virtual fixtures [8], apply grids of laser burns [9], or perform other intelligent behaviors [10].…”

Retinal vessel cannulation with an image-guided handheld robot

“…Though the approach did not improve the cannulation success rate, the experiment did show improved ability to maintain the cannula in the vessel. We propose a vessel cannulation system based on a handheld robot, “Micron” [9], using vision-based control. Preliminary results ex vivo , performed by an experienced retinal surgeon, validate the system.…”

Hand-Held Force Magnifier for Surgical Instruments

“…The desire to free robotic surgery devices from the floor-standing robotic arm has led to hand-held systems such as the Micron microsurgical instrument from Riviere's group, which uses piezoelectric actuators to move the tip relative to the handle, based on optical tracking of both the tip and handle [8]. The primary goal of Micron is to reduce the effects of hand tremor; it is not suited to provide a magnified sense of touch.…”