Analyzing the Effects of Latency for Remote Nano- and Micromanipulation

Micro- and nanomanipulation is a critical tool in numerous fields and long distance telemanipulation can facilitate research and education. When utilizing a fully computerized manipulation system with digital optics the primary performance degradation introduced by long distance access is latency. The effects of latency have been studied for other applications including robotic telesurgery and desktop computer use but these effects are not well understood for micro- and nanomanipulation. This paper explores the effects of latency on the effectiveness of single probe manipulation with a variety of common hardware control devices. A virtual environment was created where an artificial latency can be imposed for the completion of a task simulating single probe manipulator use. The virtual environment can be operated without the use of a physical manipulator or with the use of the manipulator utilizing image processing to track the location of the probe. Users completed a variety of manipulation tasks with a proprietary micromanipulator joystick, a standalone position joystick, a computer mouse and a pen tablet while their performance was quantified over a range of imposed latencies. Qualitative satisfaction was recorded to determine acceptable latency ranges for remote operation of nano- and micromanipulators. The study revealed that as latency increased, user performance degraded the most for the joysticks and degraded less for both the mouse and pen tablet.