Contactless Acoustic Manipulation of Soft, Delicate object in Aqueous Environment

Abstract

The demand for artificial organs to replace organ transplantation is increasing due to a shortage of organ donors compared to the demand for organs. To create implantable artificial organs without immune rejection, the Alchemist project team devises a method to assemble and increase the volume of 3D bio-printed organ modules. However, these organ modules are soft and delicate and must be in an aqueous environment. Therefore, assembling organ modules is a challenge, since conventional grippers such as hard grippers, and soft grippers are not suitable for our task. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a gripper that uses sound waves to manipulate objects without contact. The handheld assembly operation was successfully performed by analyzing the conditions in which the force is generated and the applied force to the surroundings is minimized.