Robotic positioning system

Abstract

A microplate handling apparatus comprising: a housing; a robotic arm mounted to the housing; and a controller located within the housing and arranged to control the robotic arm and further arranged to control an instrument. By embedding the controller within the robotic arm rather than having it as a separate PC the controller becomes a dedicated controller for the robotic arm and any associated instruments. As the controller is a dedicated controller, users are less likely to attempt to make use of the controller for any other purpose. The system provider/installer retains much greater control of the set up, e.g. of the operating system and software installation. There is a much lower likelihood of conflicting software or erroneous settings causing software problems. This reduces the number of software support problems that need to be answered which in turn reduces the cost of the system itself and/or any associated support contract. This benefit is particularly relevant to smaller, bench top systems where the operational scale (lab scale) is generally smaller and project budgets are also smaller. Thus the equipment and support cost is of much greater importance in such systems.

Claims

1. A microplate handling apparatus comprising: a housing; a robotic arm mounted to the housing; and a controller located within the housing and arranged to control the robotic arm and further arranged to control an instrument.

2. A microplate handling apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the housing comprises an output communication port and wherein the controller is arranged to send control signals for an instrument via the output communication port.

3. A microplate handling apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the controller comprises a scheduler which is programmable to control both the instrument and the robotic arm.

4. A microplate handling apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the controller is arranged to provide a webserver interface for programming software loaded onto the controller.

5. A microplate handling apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the apparatus is a bench top apparatus.

6. A system comprising a microplate-handling instrument and a microplate handling apparatus as claimed in claim 1.

7. A system as claimed in claim 6, wherein the microplate-handling instrument is a bench top instrument.

8. A system as claimed in claim 6, wherein the microplate-handling instrument is controlled by the controller.

Description

[0017] Preferred embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, and with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

[0018] FIG. 1 shows a prior art bench top microplate handling system;

[0019] FIG. 2 shows a microplate handling system according to the invention.

[0020] FIG. 1 shows a known bench top microplate handling apparatus 100. A robotic arm 25 is mounted to a housing 20. The robotic arm 25 may be of any suitable type, but for example may have a central vertical rotary shaft which can rotate around a central axis (this being the primary axis of rotation for the robotic arm 25). A rigid bar may extend horizontally from the central shaft and be vertically movable relative to the shaft, i.e. vertically movable parallel to the rotation axis. The robotic arm 25 has a number of degrees of freedom which allow it to pick up and deposit microplates within its work envelope (the locus of positions reachable by the arm). Thus by positioning plate storage devices such as plate stacks or plate nests and/or plate processing equipment such as microplate processing or analysis machines 30 within the work envelope, the robotic arm can be used to automate the transfer of microplates from the storage devices to the processing equipment and to return the plates from the processing equipment to the same or different storage devices. The robotic arm may also handle the removing and replacing of microplate lids if required.

[0021] As shown in FIG. 1, both the robotic arm 25 and a microplate analysis machine 30 are separately controlled by a desktop PC 10. The PC is a standard desktop computer running an operating system such as Microsoft Windows, MacOS or Linux. The PC 10 runs a scheduler program which may be proprietary software that generates and issues commands for each of the robotic arm 25 and the analysis machine 30. The robotic arm 25 and the analysis machine 30 can be operationally connected to the PC 10 by wires or cables such as ethernet cables, USB cables or other serial cable connections. Alternatively wireless protocols such as Bluetooth may be used to send and receive control signals. The scheduler software on the PC 10 controls the timing and interleaving of such commands for efficient and reliable operation of the system 100 as a whole. For example, the scheduler software may issue the following sequence of instructions: [0022] Instruct the robotic arm 25 to fetch a microplate from an input plate stack (not shown) and deposit it on a temporary plate storage nest (first nest). [0023] Instruct the robotic arm 25 to remove a lid from the microplate and store the lid on another nest. [0024] Instruct the robotic arm 25 to fetch the microplate from the first nest and deposit it on an analysis machine 30. [0025] Instruct the analysis machine 30 to begin processing the microplate. [0026] Wait for a completion signal from the analysis machine 30. [0027] Instruct the robotic arm 25 to fetch the processed microplate from the analysis machine 30 and deposit it on the first nest. [0028] Instruct the robotic arm 25 to fetch the lid from the second nest and replace it on the processed microplate. [0029] Instruct the robotic arm 25 to fetch the processed microplate (with lid) and deposit it on an output plate stack.

[0030] This series of instructions may be repeated until all plates have been processed. It will be appreciated that significantly more complex processing can be performed, e.g. to make more efficient use of the analysis machine 30 or to encompass additional processing machines 30.

[0031] FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of the invention in which a microplate handling apparatus 200 has no separate PC 10, but instead has an embedded controller 40 embedded within the robotic arm 25 (specifically within the housing 20 to which the robotic arm is attached). The embedded controller 40 can perform all the same functions as the PC 10 and may in fact be a fully functional miniature computer such as a Raspberry Pi or other versatile controller such as an Arduino. However, because the controller 40 is embedded in the robotic arm 25 rather than being a separate desktop PC, it is not easily usable for other general tasks or loading other software (as is the case for the desktop PC 10 in FIG. 1). This reduces the possibility for errors in set up and errors due to software conflict, thus greatly reducing the potential for support calls and thereby greatly reducing the support costs for the system 200. Additionally the absence of the desktop PC 10 reduces the desk top footprint of the system 200 as no PC 10 is required.

[0032] The embedded controller 40 can run the same (or very similar) scheduler program to control both the robotic arm 25 and one or more attached peripheral devices such as analysis machine 30. As the controller 40 is embedded, it can be provided with pre-wired connections to the robotic arm 25 for control thereof. The controller 40 is connected to an output port 50 on the housing 20 for connection of a wire or cable to the analysis machine 30 (there may of course be a plurality of such output ports 50 for connection to several machines, or such machines may be networked or daisy-chained via a single port 50). The port may of course also be an input port (i.e. a two-way port) so that the attached equipment 30 can provide status updates or feedback to the controller 40 (such as an analysis complete signal or the like). In alternative examples, instead of (or in addition to) wired connections, wireless communication protocols may be used to communicate with the attached equipment 30.

[0033] The embedded controller 40 is not as readily accessible as a stand-alone PC. For example, the robotic arm 25 and housing 20 will not normally have an integrated keyboard or pointer device and therefore access to the controller 40 will need to be accomplished either by attaching such peripherals or by remote connecting to the controller 40. For example, the controller 40 may be arranged to receive remote login connections such as via SSH. An alternative is to have the controller 40 running a webserver and allowing programming of the controller 40 and more specifically the scheduler software (or similar) through a web interface. This web interface again provides a restricted access to the users so that the controller 40 is only used for control of the robotic arm 25 and the equipment 30 and cannot readily be used for other purposes that may conflict or interfere with that operation.

[0034] It will be appreciated that the controller 40 may otherwise provide the full functionality that was previously available via a stand-alone desktop PC 10, including allowing for software updates (e.g. updating to a new version of the operating system or of the scheduler software) and allowing fetching and installation of add-ons or modules to allow for control of multiple different pieces of equipment and to allow for expansion to new equipment as and when available.