Micro-scale robotic task control and automation

近年来，医学和生物学研究界对转基因生物体的开发、对小细胞群或单细胞的药物测试以及与遗传学有关的其他活动的研究产生了极大的兴趣。 很明显，这些任务，例如将材料注入细胞，必须大规模进行，以跟上医学和生物研究界的需要。 目前，这种处理大部分是使用手动操作进行的。 为了解决这个问题，这里提出的研究工作是针对使用机器人技术的微尺度任务的自动化。这位研究人员在与微尺度任务执行相关的关键领域的机器人研究方面有着悠久的历史。这些领域包括机器人的力控制，接触任务的执行，闭环控制器的设计与规定的闭环性能的机器人，机器人接触任务控制的稳定性和性能的调查。 我们将调查关键的研究领域，现在站在涉及与生物材料接触的微尺度任务的自动化的方式。如果由于接触细胞的装置控制不良而破坏生物材料，则机器人装置与微生物样本的相互作用容易导致失败。我们将设计控制器，可以可靠地控制微牛顿级的力，使材料可靠和一致地插入细胞。视觉控制加上内环力和位置控制将被设计和测试，可用于自动化的过程。利用鲁棒控制设计方法，控制器将被设计为允许这些机器人操作进行在生物材料的机械性能的大量动态参数的不确定性的存在下，同时实现良好的闭环性能。此外，还将开发自动定位生物材料以进行自动机器人处理的方法。广泛的实验研究将测试和验证这些方法的动态行为。

In recent years, there has been tremendous interest within the medical and biological research communities as their research into the development of transgenic organisms, drug testing on small groups of cells or single cells, and other activities related to genetics has developed. It has become evident that such tasks, such as injection of material into cells for example, must be carried out on a large scale to keep pace with the needs of the medical and biological research communities. Currently, much of this processing is carried out using manual operations. To address this concern, the research work proposed here is directed towards the automation of micro-scale tasks using robotic technology. This researcher has a lengthy history in research in robotics in key areas of relevance to micro-scale task execution. These areas include robotic force control, contact task execution, design of closed-loop controllers for robots with prescribed closed-loop performance, investigation of stability and performance of robotic contact task controls. We will investigate key research areas which now stand in the way of the automation of micro-scale tasks involving contact with biological materials. Interaction of robotic devices with micro-biological specimens easily results in failure if the biological material is disrupted due to poor control of the devices contacting cells. We will design controllers which can reliably control forces at the micro-Newton level, allowing reliable and consistent insertion of material into cells. Vision control coupled with inner-loop force and position controls will be designed and tested which can be used to automate the process. Utilizing robust control design methodologies, controllers will be designed to allow these robotic operations to be conducted in the presence of substantial dynamic parameter uncertainty in the biological material mechanical properties, while achieving good closed-loop performance. Further, methods will be developed to automatically position biological materials for automatic robotic processing. Extensive experimental investigations will test and verify the dynamic behaviour of these methodologies.