Expanding the Capabilities of Liquid Handling Platforms – Integration with Interface Robotics

The functionality of liquid handling platforms has expanded significantly. In addition to the main task - dosing and aliquoting liquids - there are now numerous other sub-processes that can be handled on classical liquid handling decks. Numerous additional devices can be integrated on the deck of the liquid handling platforms for process steps such as incubations, centrifugations, tempering, solid phase extractions or the integration of optical measurement methods. The flexibility of the systems increases significantly with the number of additional integrated systems. However, the deck size of many liquid handlers is limited, so the number of samples that can be processed is limited.
To overcome these bottlenecks and to ensure truly fully automated operation without manual intervention, the functionality of liquid handler platforms can be significantly increased by integrating interface robots. With the help of these systems, the LH deck can be equipped with labware and samples; processed materials can be eliminated from the deck. In addition, additional capacity and functionality can be created outside the LH deck, e.g., by the integration of optical measurement methods or storage systems. The control of the interface robot and liquid handler as well as the cooperation of both systems is realized via a higher-level control system (SAMI). A further increase in capacity and even more flexibility of the entire system is possible through the integration of mobile robots as transport instances for the delivery and removal of samples, reagents and labware.
As part of the lecture, the overall concept as well as exemplary solutions for classic applications will be presented.