Automated sperm immobilization for intracytoplasmic sperm injection

Sperm immobilization is a requisite step in intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Conventionally, sperm immobilization is performed manually, which entails long training hours and stringent skills. Manual sperm immobilization also has the limitation of low success rates and poor reproducibility due to human fatigue and skill variations across operators. This paper presents a system for fully automated sperm immobilization to eliminate limitations in manual operation. Integrating computer vision and motion control algorithms, the automated system is able to visually track a sperm and control a micropipette to immobilize the sperm. A robust sperm tail tracking algorithm is developed to locate the optimal position on the sperm tail for sperm immobilization. The system demonstrates: 1) an average sperm tail tracking error of 0.95 μm; 2) a sperm tail visual tracking success rate of 96%; 3) a sperm immobilization success rate of 88.2% (based on 1000 trials); and 4) a speed of 6-7 s per successful immobilization.