Interactive OT Gym: A Reinforcement Learning-Based Interactive Optical tweezer (OT)-Driven Microrobotics Simulation Platform

TL;DR

Interactive OT Gym is a reinforcement learning-based simulation platform that enhances micromanipulation with optical tweezers, enabling seamless manual and autonomous control for complex biological object manipulation.

Contribution

We developed a novel simulation platform integrating RL, haptic feedback, and shared control for OT-driven microrobotics, facilitating advanced manipulation and control algorithm development.

Findings

Shared control improves manipulation efficiency by 67%.

Achieved 100% success rate in cell manipulation tasks.

Platform supports high-fidelity, low-cost, real-time simulation.

Abstract

Optical tweezers (OT) offer unparalleled capabilities for micromanipulation with submicron precision in biomedical applications. However, controlling conventional multi-trap OT to achieve cooperative manipulation of multiple complex-shaped microrobots in dynamic environments poses a significant challenge. To address this, we introduce Interactive OT Gym, a reinforcement learning (RL)-based simulation platform designed for OT-driven microrobotics. Our platform supports complex physical field simulations and integrates haptic feedback interfaces, RL modules, and context-aware shared control strategies tailored for OT-driven microrobot in cooperative biological object manipulation tasks. This integration allows for an adaptive blend of manual and autonomous control, enabling seamless transitions between human input and autonomous operation. We evaluated the effectiveness of our platform using a cell manipulation task. Experimental results show that our shared control system significantly improves micromanipulation performance, reducing task completion time by approximately 67% compared to using pure human or RL control alone and achieving a 100% success rate. With its high fidelity, interactivity, low cost, and high-speed simulation capabilities, Interactive OT Gym serves as a user-friendly training and testing environment for the development of advanced interactive OT-driven micromanipulation systems and control algorithms. For more details on the project, please see our website https://sites.google.com/view/otgym