Towards a real-time 3D vision-based micro-force sensing probe

This paper presents a vision-based micro-force sensing probe that is capable of μ N level force sensing in three dimensions. The sensor is mounted on a standard micromanipulation probe and can be easily integrated into many systems. It is low cost and reliable tool that can be specifically tailored for a desired application. Tests were conducted to demonstrate the accuracy of the system and to showcase some of its possible applications. An offline tracking algorithm was developed to evaluate the proposed technique. An online algorithm was developed that uses selective color tracking to allow for real-time micro-force feedback at speeds of up to 28 Hz. It is capable of achieving sub-μ N force resolution, with a range of 186 μ N and an average accuracy of 2.41% in real-time. Two case studies using the vision-based micro-force sensing probe were performed to demonstrate the efficacy of the system.