Robotic laboratory automation platform based on mobile agents for clinical chemistry

In this research, we propose an innovative robotic platform for clinical tests suitable for small- or medium-sized laboratories using small-sized multiple mobile robots and a robotic arm. The robotic platform, called “BioRobot Platform,” allows us to run a test process more flexibly than traditional sequential test procedures using conveyor belts by simultaneously conducting various clinical tests through multiple mobile agents. It also improves productivity (the number of tests conducted in time) by having controllable throughput according to amount of tests. Moreover, to operate the entire hardware and several mobile agents concurrently, the various algorithms related to robotic technologies such as motion control, localization, and path planning algorithm are applied to the platform. To evaluate the performance of the BioRobot Platform, various control methods are implemented, which provides parallel processing and scalability. The feasibility of the BioRobot Platform with three mobile robotic agents is validated through preliminary experiments.