Haptic microrobotic intracellular injection assistance using virtual fixtures

In manual cell injection the operator relies completely on visual information for task feedback and is subject to extended training times as well as poor success rates and repeatability. From this perspective, enhancing human-in-the-loop intracellular injection through haptic interaction offers significant benefits. This paper outlines two haptic virtual fixtures aiming to assist the human operator while performing cell injection. The first haptic virtual fixture is a parabolic force field designed to assist the operator in guiding the micropipette´s tip to a desired penetration point on the cell´s surface. The second is a planar virtual fixture which attempts to assist the operator from moving the micropipette´s tip beyond the deposition target location inside the cell. Preliminary results demonstrate the operation of the haptically assisted microrobotic cell injection system.