Contactless automated manipulation of mesoscale objects using opto-fluidic actuation and visual servoing

Emir Vela (1) , Moustapha Hafez (2, 3) , Stephane Regnier (4)

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología
2 DIASI (CEA, LIST) - Département Intelligence Ambiante et Systèmes Interactifs
3 LIST (CEA) - Laboratoire d'Intégration des Systèmes et des Technologies
4 ISIR - Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique

This work describes an automated opto-fluidic system for parallel non-contact manipulation of microcomponents. The strong dynamics of laser-driven thermocapillary flows were used to drag microcomponents at high speeds. High-speed flows allowed to manipulate micro-objects in a parallel manner only using a single laser and a mirror scanner. An automated process was implemented using visual servoing with a high-speed camera in order to achieve accurately parallel manipulation. Automated manipulation of two glass beads of 30 up to 300 $\mu$m in diameter moving in parallel at speeds in the range of mm/s was demonstrated.

Domaines: Intelligence artificielle [cs.AI]; Vision par ordinateur et reconnaissance de formes [cs.CV]

Emir Vela, Moustapha Hafez, Stephane Regnier. Contactless automated manipulation of mesoscale objects using opto-fluidic actuation and visual servoing. Review of Scientific Instruments, 2014, 85, pp.055107. ⟨10.1063/1.4874744⟩. ⟨cea-01820314⟩