A Computer-Vision-Guided Robot Arm for Automatically Placing Grids in Pioloform Film Preparation

Preparing pioloform/formvar support films on transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grids is a routine laboratory procedure in practically all electron microscopy units. In current practice, these grids are manually placed on the support film one by one using special tweezers, a process requiring a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inMethods and protocols Vol. 2; no. 1; p. 9
Main Authors Peurla, Markus, Hänninen, Pekka, Eskelinen, Eeva-Liisa
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published MDPI 17.01.2019
MDPI AG
Subjects
Benchmark
computer vision
formvar
grid
pioloform
robot
transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Preparing pioloform/formvar support films on transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grids is a routine laboratory procedure in practically all electron microscopy units. In current practice, these grids are manually placed on the support film one by one using special tweezers, a process requiring a steady hand. The work is often ergonomically awkward to continue for a longer period of time. In this article, we describe a low-cost, computer vision-guided robot arm that automatically places the grids on the film. The success rate of the prototype robot is 90%, which is comparable to an experienced laboratory technician.
ISSN:2409-9279
2409-9279
DOI:10.3390/mps2010009