Abstract
In the field of life science, the manipulation and analysis of cells is important. However, manipulating micro objects by hand without the help of equipment is a difficult task. We developed a two-fingered micro-hand, which can help to operation of micro objects and increase operation efficiency. The cell's stiffness is an important mechanical property for the understanding the cell's condition. Kawakami et al. have developed a technique to measure cell hardness using a two-fingered micro-hand with needle-shaped end effectors. This paper proposes a method to measure the hardness of softer cells using plate-shaped end effectors. In this paper, we propose a model of a plate-shaped end effector and a hardness measurement method suitable for the new end effector, and compare the experimental results of our model and the needle-shaped model.
