IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2019 Feb;66(2):444-452. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2018.2848972. Epub 2018 Jun 19.
In clinical intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a motile sperm must be immobilized before insertion into an oocyte. This paper aims to develop a robotic system for automated tracking, orientation control, and immobilization of motile sperms for clinical ICSI applications.
We adapt the probabilistic data association filter by adding sperm head orientation into state variables for robustly tracking the sperm head and estimating sperm tail positions under interfering conditions. The robotic system also utilizes a motorized rotational microscopy stage and a new visual servo control strategy that predicts and compensates for sperm movements to actively adjust sperm orientation for immobilizing a sperm swimming in any direction.
The system robustly tracked sperm head with a tracking success rate of 96.0% and estimated sperm tail position with an accuracy of 1.08 μm under clinical conditions where the occlusion of the target sperm and interference from other sperms occur. Experimental results from robotic immobilization of 400 sperms confirmed that the system achieved a consistent immobilization success rate of 94.5%, independent of sperm velocity or swimming direction.
Our adapted tracking algorithm effectively distinguishes the target sperm from interfering sperms. Predicting and compensating for sperm movements significantly reduce the positioning error during sperm orientation control. These features make the robotic system suitable for automated sperm immobilization.
The robotic system eliminates stringent skill requirements in manual sperm immobilization. It is capable of manipulating sperms swimming in an arbitrary direction with a high success rate.
在临床胞质内单精子注射（ICSI）中，游动精子必须在插入卵母细胞之前被固定。本文旨在开发一种用于自动跟踪、定向控制和固定游动精子的机器人系统，用于临床 ICSI 应用。
我们通过将精子头方向添加到状态变量中，对概率数据关联滤波器进行了自适应，以在干扰条件下稳健地跟踪精子头并估计精子尾部位置。机器人系统还利用了一个电动旋转显微镜台和一种新的视觉伺服控制策略，该策略预测和补偿精子运动，以主动调整精子方向，从而固定在任何方向游动的精子。
在存在目标精子被遮挡和其他精子干扰的临床条件下，该系统以 96.0%的跟踪成功率稳健地跟踪精子头，并以 1.08 μm 的精度估计精子尾部位置。对 400 个精子进行机器人固定的实验结果证实，该系统实现了 94.5%的一致固定成功率，与精子速度或游动方向无关。
我们的自适应跟踪算法有效地将目标精子与干扰精子区分开来。预测和补偿精子运动显著减少了精子定向控制过程中的定位误差。这些功能使机器人系统适用于自动精子固定。
该机器人系统消除了手动精子固定中对严格技能要求的依赖。它能够以高成功率操纵在任意方向游动的精子。
