Application of a Dual-Arm Robot in Complex Sample Preparation and Measurement Processes

Abstract

Automation systems with applied robotics have already been established in industrial applications for many years. In the field of life sciences, a comparable high level of automation can be found in the areas of bioscreening and high-throughput screening. Strong deficits still exist in the development of flexible and universal fully automated systems in the field of analytical measurement. Reasons are the heterogeneous processes with complex structures, which include sample preparation and transport, analytical measurements using complex sensor systems, and suitable data analysis and evaluation. Furthermore, the use of nonstandard sample vessels with various shapes and volumes results in an increased complexity. The direct use of existing automation solutions from bioscreening applications is not possible. A flexible automation system for sample preparation, analysis, and data evaluation is presented in this article. It is applied for the determination of cholesterol in biliary endoprosthesis using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A dual-arm robot performs both transport and active manipulation tasks to ensure human-like operation. This general robotic concept also enables the use of manual laboratory devices and equipment and is thus suitable in areas with a high standardization grade.

Food authentication in real life: How to link nontargeted approaches with routine analytics?

“…While such approaches are rather unsuitable due to the lack of flexibility in the scientific field, they can achieve great added value in established procedures with a high degree of standardization in routine analysis. It can also be assumed that the devices will become more and more flexible in the course of development work, for example by installing several robot arms [41,42].…”

Analytical Measurements and Efficient Process Generation Using a Dual–Arm Robot Equipped with Electronic Pipettes

“…Dual-arm robotic systems also can be applied for liquid handling processes if equipped with suitable pipettes. Due to the human-like structure of the robotic arms, conventional manual pipettes can be used [4,[10][11][12][13]29,30]. The dual-arm robot performs transportation tasks to connect several stations on the robotic working area and additionally the active manipulation of samples: The robot acts as a flexible robot [4].…”

“…The dual-arm robot, CSDA10F (Yaskawa, Kitakyūshū, Japan), is fix mounted in the automation system and surrounded by a workbench, multi-level storage racks, and two analytical measurement instruments. The samples can be automatically placed into the autosampler units of the liquid chromatography mass spectrometer (LC/MS) and the gas chromatography mass spectrometer (GC/MS) (both Agilent Technologies, Waldbronn, Germany) [4,10,12]. The workbench is equipped with automated labware positioners (ALPs) for exact placing of labware in standardized microplate format.…”

“…A wide variety of typical tasks exist in sample preparation processes for analytical measurements, including transportation of sample containers, vessels, vials, and microplates, and opening and closing vessels as well as active sample manipulation, such as pipetting, shaking, cooling/heating, ultrasonic and centrifuge treatment, incubation, measurements, and many more. The dual-arm robot must be equipped with suitable end-effectors to handle numerous labware types, open/close doors, flaps and sample containers, and press buttons [10][11][12][13]. In general, processes using dual-arm robots can be executed in one of three basic operation modes: Non-coordinated operation (each arm executes an own independent process), goal-coordinated operation (both arms execute one process), and coordinated bimanual operation (both arms are necessary to execute one process together) [5].…”

“…In general, processes using dual-arm robots can be executed in one of three basic operation modes: Non-coordinated operation (each arm executes an own independent process), goal-coordinated operation (both arms execute one process), and coordinated bimanual operation (both arms are necessary to execute one process together) [5]. The coordinated bimanual operation is required to execute pipetting processes using classical manual laboratory pipettes, whereby one arm holds the pipette, and the other arm moves the plunger [10]. The non-coordinated operation mode can be used to handle electronic pipettes [14].…”