Integration of a Vision System Based on Calipers for Cell Pellet Isolation in an Automated Cell Treatment Production Machine Integrazione di un sistema di visione basato su calibri per l'isolamento di pellet cellulare in una macchina automatica per terapie cellulari

In the latest years, scientists are developing new blood treatments for patients affected by blood cancers, autoimmune diseases and neurological disorders. Those treatments are different from patient to patient, require a large clean room and a great amount of highly specialized personnel, making them very expensive to produce. The CF Box (Cell Factory Box) is a small automated laboratory that wants to mimic the procedures required to manually produce those blood treatments to cut off time production, personnel and required space, reducing the costs making those treatments more accessible from patients. The most common procedure concerning blood treatments is the separation of the blood cells from the plasma and the CF Box must be able to perform this task autonomously. This procedure is carried on by filling the vials with the blood solution, centrifuge them and then aspiring out the liquid phase of the solution from those vials. After the centrifugation the blood cells initially suspended in the solution will appear sedimented at the bottom of the vials, making it very easy for a human operator to separate the supernatant (liquid phase) from the cell pellet (solid phase). Although this task can be easily handled by a human being, it is very challenging for a machine since the amount of blood cells in each vial is different from patient to patient and an high grade of dexterity is required. The aim of the work is to overcome this challenge and develop a system capable of consistently performing the pellet and supernatant separation. This thesis also describes the functionalities of the modules of the machine, their scope and characteristics, such as the Staubli robot, the Scara robot, the dosing systems and the centrifuge. The approach used during the project is heavily inspired from the process that biologists currently perform manually in laboratories. The task just described can be split in two main problems: cell pellet detection and supernatant aspiration. The cell pellet detection is performed using a vision system that involves the usage of a camera while the supernatant aspiration is performed using an actuator system that controls a syringe. In this this thesis both the problems will be analyzed in detail, tested stand alone and finally merged together to test the outcome of the entire system. The first results will be initially evaluated empirically while the final and most important one will be evaluated from external biologists, measuring the percentage of vital cells present in the pellet and in the supernatant of the tested vials. The results coming from all the tests run on the system will show a correct functionality of the machine. This project was proudly carried out in collaboration with PBL S.R.L., where the research and implementation took place and the machine discussed in the thesis is an invention protected by the following patents: Utility Model Patent Application N. 202023000003900 Patent application for an industrial invention N. 102023000019491