System to Track Samples in Liquid Nitrogen Environment

目前，主要有两种方法来跟踪液氮冷冻机中的样品，手动方法和机器人方法。 系统.手动跟踪是迄今为止最常见的方法，但它很容易出现人为错误， 样本可能放错地方，条目可能不准确，样本可能被移动、删除或添加， 准确更新数据库。 另一方面，机器人冷冻机保持准确的记录，但它们（a）非常昂贵，并且（B）它们的 由于机器人技术，产能显著降低。 这个SBIR快速通道提案的目标是开发一个系统的功能原型， 在液氮冷冻机里追踪箱子它甚至不用打开冰箱就能进行库存盘点。它 将引导用户到所需的样本框进行检索，并提醒他们错误（以及如何纠正 当它们发生时。 当使用我们的液氮温度箱映射器从多个冰柜冷链保管 小至单个样品瓶，都可以进行维护和记录。 该系统将以大约10%的价格提供机器人系统的许多好处， 牺牲任何冷冻空间。 该系统将占据单个冰柜之间的很大一部分市场， 一方面是手写笔记本和Excel电子表格，另一方面是昂贵的机器人冷冻系统。 其他. 新的电子产品，可与具有挑战性的液氮环境和相关的低成本环境兼容。 需要开发一级软件，但系统的其他元素，如用户界面， 改编自BioTillion现有产品。为了降低风险，我们已经确定并测试了 在-196 °C下工作的电子元件。 第一阶段的目标是设计、制造和测试（a）所需的电子设计原型， 在-196 °C下读取RFID盒标签和（B）可在液氮温度下读取的RFID标记的标签。 第二阶段的目标将是利用第一阶段的结果，开发一个功能齐全的原型系统 可以在液氮冷冻机中运行

Today, there are primarily two ways to track samples in a liquid nitrogen freezer, manual methods and robotic systems. Manual tracking is by far the most common method today but it is prone to human error since samples can be misplaced, entries can be inaccurate, samples can be moved, removed, or added without accurately updating the database. Robotic freezers, on the other hand, keep accurate records but they (a) are very expensive, and (b) their capacity is significantly reduced due to the robotics. The goal of this SBIR fast-track proposal, is to develop a functional prototype of a system that will allow real-time box tracking in a liquid nitrogen freezer. It will perform inventories without even opening the freezer. It will guide the users to the desired sample boxes for retrieval and alert them to errors (and how to correct them) when they occur. When used with our liquid nitrogen temperature box mapper a cold chain of custody from multiple freezers down to individual sample vials can be maintained and documented. This system will afford many of the benefits of a robotic system at about 10% of the price and without sacrificing any freezer space at all. This system will capture the very large segment of the market between single freezers with handwritten notebooks and Excel spreadsheets on the one hand, and expensive robotic freezer systems on the other. New electronics that is compatible with the challenging liquid nitrogen environment and the associated low level software will need to be developed but other elements of the system such as the user interface can be adapted from BioTillion‘s existing products. To mitigate risk, we have already identified and tested individual electronics components that function at -196 °C. The goal of the Phase I will be to design, fabricate and test (a) prototypes of the electronic designs needed to read RFID box tags at -196 °C and (b) RFID tagged labels that can be read at liquid nitrogen temperatures. The goal of the Phase II will be to use the Phase I results to develop a fully functional prototype of our system that will operate in a liquid nitrogen freezer.