Integration of Electronic Pipettes into a Dual-arm Robotic System for Automated Analytical Measurement Processes

Automated systems have been gaining more and more importance in the life science sector for years. While bioscreening and high-throughput screening processes are well automated, there is an increasing demand on automation systems in the field of analytical measurements. In such special processes, robots perform not only transportation tasks but also complex sample preparation procedures for subsequent measurements (e.g., chromatography and mass spectrometry). One important part in sample preparation processes are liquid handling or pipetting procedures to transfer chemicals for derivatization processes, to prepare standard solutions, or to dilute the samples prior the analytical measurement process. In this study, two electronic pipettes with different volume ranges (5-200 mu l and 50-1,000 mu l) were integrated into a dual-arm robotic system. Several hardware and software integration concepts are presented; one concept using a wired connection was realized. A communication interface for robot and pipette control was implemented. Robot jobs were generated for handling the pipettes. The pipetting processes were integrated into a high-level process control system. Several constructive modifications of the existing automation cell were done including pipette holders and cable guides. The performance of the system including the precision of liquid handling tasks using two electronic pipettes and the dual-arm robot were determined and compared with manually performed pipetting processes. The robotic system can be flexibly used in several fully-automated sample preparation processes for subsequent analytical measurements.