Microbubbles for High-Speed Assembly of Cell-Laden Vascular-Like Microtube

Vascular-like microtube takes an important role in delivering oxygen and nutrient to keep cell alive in the generated tissue. In this paper, we present an automated micromanipulation system to assemble 2-D gel micro-rings to vascular-like microtubes by means of generating and controlling microbubbles. The detailed automated assembly process is described. To enable the automated assembly, real-time image processing has been utilized to detect end-effectors and gel micro-rings in 2-D X-Y plane. Additionally, we can acquire an estimated depth information by implementing the optimized template match. The motion model of the microbubbles is analyzed and applied to control the microbubbles. As a preliminary test, a cell-laden microtube consisting of 33 layers gel micro-rings is fabricated. Experimental results show that the bubble-based assembly method and the automated micromanipulation system allow high efficiency and high success rate for the assembly of microtubes.