The treatment of malaria is a global health challenge that stands to benefit from the widespread introduction of a vaccine for the disease. A method has been developed to create a live organism vaccine using the sporozoites (SPZ) of the parasite Plasmodium falciparum (Pf), which are concentrated in the salivary glands of infected mosquitoes. Current manual dissection methods to obtain these PfSPZ are not optimally efficient for large-scale vaccine production. We propose an improved dissection procedure and a mechanical fixture that increases the rate of mosquito dissection and helps to deskill this stage of the production process. We further demonstrate the automation of a key step in this production process, the picking and placing of mosquitoes from a staging apparatus into a dissection assembly. This unit test of a robotic mosquito pick-and-place system is performed using a custom-designed microgripper attached to a four-degree-of-freedom (4-DOF) robot under the guidance of a computer vision system. Mosquitoes are autonomously grasped and pulled to a pair of notched dissection blades to remove the head of the mosquito, allowing access to the salivary glands. Placement into these blades is adapted based on output from computer vision to accommodate for the unique anatomy and orientation of each grasped mosquito. In this pilot test of the system on 50 mosquitoes, we demonstrate a 100% grasping accuracy and a 90% accuracy in placing the mosquito with its neck within the blade notches such that the head can be removed. This is a promising result for this difficult and nonstandard pick-and-place task. Note to Practitioners —Automated processes could help increase malaria vaccine production to a global scale. Currently, production requires technicians to manually dissect mosquitoes, a process that is slow and tedious and requires a lengthy training regimen. This article presents an improved manual fixture and procedure that reduces technician training time. Furthermore, an approach to automate this dissection process is proposed and the critical step of robotic manipulation of the mosquito with the aid of computer vision is demonstrated. Our approach may serve as a useful example of system design and integration for practitioners that seek to perform new and challenging pick-and-place tasks with small, nonuniform, and highly deformable objects.

中文翻译：

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用于基于 PfSPZ 的疟疾疫苗生产的蚊子取放系统

疟疾的治疗是一项全球性的健康挑战，它将受益于广泛引入该疾病的疫苗。已开发出一种使用寄生虫的子孢子 (SPZ) 制造活生物体疫苗的方法恶性疟原虫（Pf），它们集中在受感染蚊子的唾液腺中。目前获得这些 PfSPZ 的手动解剖方法对于大规模疫苗生产并不是最有效的。我们提出了一种改进的解剖程序和一种机械夹具，可提高蚊子解剖率并有助于在生产过程的这一阶段进行技能化。我们进一步展示了该生产过程中关键步骤的自动化，即从分期设备中挑选和放置蚊子到解剖组件中。在计算机视觉系统的引导下，使用连接到四自由度 (4-DOF) 机器人的定制设计的微抓手对机器人蚊子拾取和放置系统进行单元测试。蚊子被自动抓住并拉到一对带缺口的解剖刀片上，以去除蚊子的头部，从而进入唾液腺。这些刀片的放置是根据计算机视觉的输出进行调整的，以适应每只被抓住的蚊子的独特解剖结构和方向。在该系统对 50 只蚊子进行的试点测试中，我们展示了 100% 的抓取准确度和 90% 的准确度，将蚊子的颈部放置在刀片槽口内，以便可以移除头部。对于这种困难且非标准的拾取和放置任务，这是一个有希望的结果。在该系统对 50 只蚊子进行的试点测试中，我们展示了 100% 的抓取准确度和 90% 的准确度，将蚊子的颈部放置在刀片槽口内，以便可以移除头部。对于这种困难且非标准的拾取和放置任务，这是一个有希望的结果。在该系统对 50 只蚊子进行的试点测试中，我们展示了 100% 的抓取准确度和 90% 的准确度，将蚊子的颈部放置在刀片槽口内，以便可以移除头部。对于这种困难且非标准的拾取和放置任务，这是一个有希望的结果。从业者须知 ——自动化流程可以帮助将疟疾疫苗的产量提高到全球范围。目前，生产需要技术人员手动解剖蚊子，这个过程缓慢而乏味，需要长时间的培训。本文介绍了一种改进的手动夹具和程序，可减少技术人员培训时间。此外，提出了一种自动化这种解剖过程的方法，并展示了借助计算机视觉对蚊子进行机器人操作的关键步骤。我们的方法可以作为系统设计和集成的有用示例，适用于寻求使用小型、不均匀和高度可变形的对象执行新的和具有挑战性的拾取和放置任务的从业者。