Automated Particle Collection for Protein Crystal Harvesting
Burak Zeydan, Andrew J. Petruska, Luca Somm, Roel Pieters, Yang Fang, David F. Sargent, Bradley J. Nelson
Abstract
A robust automated system to collect protein crystals for X-ray crystallography is presented. This system uses an ultraviolet imaging system based on commercial off-the-shelf components, a magnetically manipulated tool, and a resilient behavior-based controller. The system is validated by collecting over 350 polystyrene beads, used as crystal emulators, and transporting them 2 mm to a predefined goal in a 14-h period without human intervention. The average time to identify, collect, transport, and deliver a crystal emulator is 2.4 min, similar to an expert operator. This is the first demonstration of a completely automated robust system for protein crystal harvesting.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{ral2017_automatedparticl,
title = {Automated Particle Collection for Protein Crystal Harvesting},
author = {Burak Zeydan and Andrew J. Petruska and Luca Somm and Roel Pieters and Yang Fang and David F. Sargent and Bradley J. Nelson},
booktitle = {RA-L 2017},
year = {2017}
}