Design of a High-Throughput Robotic Microinjection System for Zebrafish Embryos and Larvae

Conventional manual microinjection, a staple technique in biological experiments, is often hampered by low throughput and limited accuracy. This letter presents a novel robotic system for high-throughput microinjection of zebrafish embryos and larvae, marking the first implementation utilizing dual robotic injectors operating. We first established comprehensive kinematics models for the robotic system, and its workspace was subsequently validated via simulation analysis. Then, a vision algorithm based on image morphological processing was proposed to rapidly and accurately identify the injection points. Furthermore, we developed a comprehensive software system with an operational interface and constructed a prototype integrating multiple hardware components to support a fully automated, high-throughput workflow. Experimental results demonstrate that the system successfully performs injections of both embryos and larvae in a single injection task, achieving an average injection time of 6.82 seconds per sample with a 96% success rate. These results confirm that the proposed robotic system offers a highly stable solution for automated microinjection, characterized by high throughput and high success/survival rates.