Stiffness Characterization and Micromanipulation for Biomedical Applications using the Vision-based Force-Sensing Magnetic Mobile Microrobot

This paper presents the use of a micro-force sensing mobile microrobot (μFSMM) for in vitro biomedical applications. The μFSMM utilizes a vision-based force sensor end-effector, which computes the force based on the deflection of a compliant structure with a known stiffness using a computer vision tracking algorithm. The μFSMM is used to characterize the stiffness of several different alginate and hyaluronic acid hydrogel spheroid samples, which are typically used in 3D tissue engineered constructs for studying cellular behavior. Additionally, μFSMM is used to perform safe micromanipulation tasks with these spheroids. These experimental results showcase some of the applications of this unique microrobot design in the fields of mechanobiology, theranostics, and force-guided micromanipulation.