A novel allocation-based formation algorithm for swarm of micro-scaled particles

Abstract

This paper presents a novel formation framework for the manipulation of micro-scaled particles with robotics and optical tweezers technologies. An allocation-based formation algorithm is used to calculate particles' trajectories. Along the trajectories, particles are trapped and moved by optical tweezers. Particles can be gradually moved into a pre-defined formation array. The main contribution of this paper lies in the proposal of using multi-agent solution to address the formation problem of particles in micro environment. The proposed framework can be applied to many bio-applications, such as cell sorting, cell transportation, cell-to-cell interaction study, etc., with high throughput and precision. Experiments on micro-scaled particles, with a robot-tweezer manipulation system, are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.