Adaptive tuning of a 2DOF controller for robust cell manipulation using IPMC actuators

Rapid advancement in medicine and bioscience is causing demand for faster, more accurate and dexterous as well as safer and more reliable micro-manipulators capable of handling biological cells. Current micro-manipulation techniques commonly damage cell walls and membranes due to their stiffness and rigidity. Ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) actuators have inherent compliance and with their ability to operate well in fluid and cellular environments they present a unique solution for safe cell manipulation. The reason for the downfall of IPMCs is that their complex behaviour makes them hard to control precisely in unknown environments and in the presence of sizeable external disturbances. This paper presents a novel scheme for adaptively tuning IPMC actuators for precise and robust micro-manipulation of biological cells. A two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) controller is developed to allow optimal performance for both disturbance rejection (DR) and set point (SP) tracking. These criteria are optimized using a proposed IFT algorithm which adaptively updates the controller parameters, with no model or prior knowledge of the operating conditions, to achieve a compliant manipulation system which can precisely track targets in the presence of large external disturbances, as will be encountered in real biological environments. Experiments are presented showing the performance optimization of an IPMC actuator in the presence of external mechanical disturbances as well as the optimization of the SP tracking. The IFT algorithm successfully tunes the DR and SP to an 85% and 69% improvement, respectively. Results are also presented for a one-degree-of- freedom (1DOF) controller tuned first for DR and then for SP, for a comparison with the 2DOF controller. Validation has been undertaken to verify that the 2DOF controller does indeed outperform both 1DOF controllers over a variety of operating conditions.