Micro Locomotion Compensator : an instrument to analyze the orientation behavior of mites and other tiny animals

微型运动补偿器是记录和分析螨类等微小动物定向行为的有力工具。它包括一个由一对电动载玻片驱动的载物台定位系统、一个带有显微透镜的视频跟踪器和一个个人计算机系统。视频跟踪器捕获在舞台上行走的螨的图像，然后定期将其位置数据报告给计算机，以将螨带回图像中心。因此，当螨在同一空间点在台上自由行走时，可以精确记录螨在1.0 mm / s以下的非常缓慢的运动。本计画的目的是验证微位移补偿器，在计画的第一年，我们建立了定位系统并测试其运作方式。虽然该系统的滑块使用微型步进电机，但旧的计算机系统已用于伺服球，无法在无振动的情况下驱动它们。因此，我们开发了一种新的控制系统，它可以驱动幻灯片在良好的性能在一个标准的IBM-PC。在移植到PC系统后，驱动程序控制载玻片足够平稳地跟踪螨，屋尘螨，以0.2 - 0.3 mm / s的速度行走。螨的位移几乎是以恒定的速度进行的。螨停止和改变方向，而它是暴露在信息素气味与香叶醛：螨的聚集信息素。这些结果将发表后，相应的取向机制被澄清在一个指导性实验的虚拟气味源。

Micro Locomotion Compensator is a powerful instrument to record and analyze the orientation behavior of tiny animals such as mites. It consists of a positioning system with a stage driven by a pair of motorized-slides, a video tracker with a microscopic lens and a personal computer system. The video tracker captures the image of a mite walking on the stage, and then periodically reports its positional data to the computer to bring back the mite to the image center. As a result very slow movement of a mite under 1.0 mm / s can be precisely recorded while it is walking freely on the stage at the same spatial point. The purpose of this project is to prove the micro locomotion compensator.In the first year of this project, we built the positioning system and examined how it works. Although slides of the system use micro-stepping motors, the old computer system, having been used for a servosphere, could not drive them without vibration. Thus we developed a new control system, which can drive the slides in good performance on a standard IBM-PC. After being ported to the PC system, the driver program controlled the slides smoothly enough to trace the mite, Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, walking at 0.2 - 0.3 mm / s. The displacement of the mite is at almost constant velocity. The mite halted and changed orientation while it is being exposed to pheromonally odored air with geranial : mite's aggregation pheromone. These results will be published after the corresponding orientation mechanism being clarified in a guiding experiment to a virtual odor source.