Mobile Laboratory Robot System

由于成本压力的增加和样品数量的稳步增加，生命科学过程的自动化变得越来越重要。虽然在生物筛选过程的自动化领域中已经开发/实施了用于全自动化的广泛概念，但是许多经典实验室过程（特别是必要的样品制备过程）的自动化仍处于起步阶段。传统的实验室过程通常由大量的子过程组成。此外，通常需要处理具有不同目标物质和方法的非常不同的样品，从材料合成到元素和结构特异性分析，以及酶和细胞分析到面向产品的质量控制过程。用于全自动处理样品的自动化生产线更可能出现在具有相同目标的大量样品的专门处理领域，典型的实验室和研究与发展领域将继续是空间上和功能上分散的系统，由几个自动化程度不同的分站组成。待操作的系统之间的样品/实验室器皿的运输由实验室工作人员以经典的手动工作方式进行。这限制了24/7的操作或需要相当多的额外人员来实施它。申请的移动的实验室机器人系统考虑到了这一点，设计为混合机器人平台，并设计为具有3个移动的运输机器人和4个接口机器人的分布式系统，这使得具有不同复杂度和自动化程度的工作站的系统集成成为可能。（申请人实验室内现有的工作站及界面机器人亦应适应移动的实验室机器人系统）。拟采购的实验室机器人系统能够并行处理几个不同的工作流程。整个系统由分层结构的工作流管理系统控制和参数化，使得对于所有工作流的公共资源管理是可能的，其中特别考虑了自动化引起的效率提高，移动的实验室机器人系统基于所有子组件方面已经建立的和强大的机器人技术，该项目是一个全自动化实验室综合体的核心要素，也是ERC协同资助先进材料自主开发（ERC 856405）和其他相关研究项目的研究活动。

The automation of processes in the life sciences is becoming more and more important due to increasing cost pressure and a steadily increasing number of samples. While extensive concepts for full automation have already been developed / implemented in the field of automation of biological screening processes, the automation of numerous classic laboratory processes, in particular the necessary sample preparation processes, is still in its infancy. Classic laboratory processes usually consist of a large number of sub-processes. In addition, very different samples with different target substances and methods, ranging from material synthesis to element and structure specific analysis as well as enzymatic and cellular assays to product-oriented quality control processes, often have to be processed.Automation lines for fully automatic processing of the samples are more likely to be found in the areas of specialized processing of large numbers of samples with identical targets, such as in the automatic analyzers known from diagnostics.Typical laboratories and the research and development area will continue to be spatially and functionally distributed systems consisting of several sub-stations with different degrees of automation. The transport of samples / labware between the systems to be operated is carried out by the laboratory staff in a classic manual way of working. This limits a 24/7 operation or requires a considerable amount of additional personnel to implement it.The mobile laboratory robot system applied for takes this into account and is designed as a hybrid robot platform and as a distributed system with 3 mobile transport robots and 4 interface robots, which enable the system integration of workstations with different degrees of complexity and automation. (Existing workstations and interface robots in the laboratories of the applicant should also be adapted to the mobile laboratory robot system). The laboratory robot system to be procured enables the parallel processing of several different workflows. The overall system is controlled and parameterized by a hierarchically structured workflow management system, so that a common resource management is possible for all workflows, which in particular takes into account the automation-induced increase in efficiency for the extremely cost-intensive analytical measurement technology.The mobile laboratory robot system is based on already established and robust robot technology with regard to all subcomponents and forms the central element of a fully automated laboratory complex and the research activities in the ERC Synergy Grant Autonomous Development of Advanced Materials (ERC 856405) and other related research projects.