Automatic transportation of biological cells with a robot-tweezer manipulation system

The positioning of biological cells has become increasingly important in biomedical research such as drug discovery, cell-to-cell interaction, and tissue engineering. Significant demand for both accuracy and productivity in cell manipulation highlights the need for automated cell transportation with integrated robotics and micro/nano-manipulation technologies. Optical tweezers, which use highly focused low-power laser beams to trap and manipulate particles at the micro/nanoscale, can be treated as special robot ‘end-effectors’ to manipulate biological objects in a noninvasive way. In this paper, we propose to use a robot-tweezer manipulation system for automatic transportation of biological cells. A dynamics equation of the cell in an optical trap is analyzed. Closed-loop controllers are designed for positioning single cells as well as multiple cells. A synchronization control technology is utilized for multicell transportation with maintained cell pattern. Experiments are performed on transporting live cells to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.