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。尽管在生物筛选过程的自动化领域已经开发/实施了广泛的全自动化概念，但许多经典实验室过程的自动化，特别是必要的样品制备过程，仍处于起步阶段。典型的实验室流程通常由大量的子流程组成。此外，具有不同目标物质和方法的非常不同的样品，从材料合成到特定于元素和结构的分析，以及酶和细胞分析，再到面向产品的质量控制过程，经常需要处理。全自动处理样品的自动线更有可能出现在具有相同目标的大量样品的专门处理领域，例如在已知的诊断自动分析仪中。典型的实验室和研发领域将继续是由几个自动化程度不同的分站组成的空间和功能分布式系统。样品/实验室器皿在要操作的系统之间的运输由实验室工作人员以传统的手工工作方式进行。应用的移动实验室机器人系统考虑到这一点，将其设计为一个混合机器人平台，并设计为一个由3个移动运输机器人和4个接口机器人组成的分布式系统，使得具有不同复杂程度和自动化程度的工作站能够实现系统集成。(申请人实验室的现有工作站和接口机器人也应适应移动实验室机器人系统)。将购买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，因此所有工作流都可以进行公共资源管理，这特别考虑到了自动化导致的极高成本密集型分析测量技术的效率提高。移动实验室机器人系统基于已经建立的关于所有子组件的强大的机器人技术，并形成了全自动化实验室综合体的中心元素，以及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.