Augmented Micro-manipulation System

This Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I Project proposes to develop and validate augmentation strategies for micrometer scale laboratory tasks by using a prototype Augmented Micro-manipulation System (AMS) based on a cooperative robot. The AMS is applicable to a vast range of micrometer scale laboratory tasks including biomedical research ranging from tissue manipulation, to cell injection and other engineering laboratory tasks such as MEMS assembly. The AMS uses the cooperative paradigm (where the robot shares the control of the tool with the user) to allow easy integration of human intelligence, superior analytical abilities of a computer, and the precision of the robot to achieve better accuracy, and success in performing the selected task. The AMS complements the basic compliant motion of the robot with appropriate sensor-based augmentation strategies for efficiently performing different portions of the selected task. The AMS is a compact, flexible, and cost-effective system for performing common micrometer scale laboratory tasks. The commercial application of this project is in the area of laboratory instrumentation linked to biomedical research.