Towards Robotic Laboratory Automation Plug & Play: Survey and Concept Proposal on Teaching-free Robot Integration with the LAPP Digital Twin

TL;DR

This paper proposes a digital twin-based framework for plug & play robotic laboratory automation that enables teaching-free robot integration, focusing on standard sample handling and device interfacing without manual configuration.

Contribution

It introduces a novel LAPP-DT framework that defines system information requirements and implementation strategies for autonomous robot integration in life science labs.

Findings

Framework outlines key data for robot and device integration.

Vision system detects device positions via optical markers.

Basic pick-and-place use case demonstrated with simple manipulators.

Abstract

The Laboratory Automation Plug & Play (LAPP) framework is an over-arching reference architecture concept for the integration of robots in life science laboratories. The plug & play nature lies in the fact that manual configuration is not required, including the teaching of the robots. In this paper a digital twin (DT) based concept is proposed that outlines the types of information that have to be provided for each relevant component of the system. In particular, for the devices interfacing with the robot, the robot positions have to be defined beforehand in a device-attached coordinate system (CS) by the vendor. This CS has to be detectable by the vision system of the robot by means of optical markers placed on the front side of the device. With that, the robot is capable of tending the machine by performing the pick-and-place type transportation of standard sample carriers. This basic use case is the primary scope of the LAPP-DT framework. The hardware scope is limited to simple benchtop and mobile manipulators with parallel grippers at this stage. This paper first provides an overview of relevant literature and state-of-the-art solutions, after which it outlines the framework on the conceptual level, followed by the specification of the relevant DT parameters for the robot, for the devices and for the facility. Finally, appropriate technologies and strategies are identified for the implementation.