Automation systems with applied robotics have already been established in industrial applications for many years. In the field of life sciences, a comparable high level of automation can be found in the areas of bioscreening and high-throughput screening. Strong deficits still exist in the development of flexible and universal fully automated systems in the field of analytical measurement. Reasons are the heterogeneous processes with complex structures, which include sample preparation and transport, analytical measurements using complex sensor systems, and suitable data analysis and evaluation. Furthermore, the use of nonstandard sample vessels with various shapes and volumes results in an increased complexity. The direct use of existing automation solutions from bioscreening applications is not possible. A flexible automation system for sample preparation, analysis, and data evaluation is presented in this article. It is applied for the determination of cholesterol in biliary endoprosthesis using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A dual-arm robot performs both transport and active manipulation tasks to ensure human-like operation. This general robotic concept also enables the use of manual laboratory devices and equipment and is thus suitable in areas with a high standardization grade.

The continued growth in life sciences is being accompanied by the constantly rising demand for robotic systems. Today, bioscreening and high–throughput screening processes are well automated. In contrast, a deficit can be found in the area of analytical measurements with complex and frequently changing processes. Robots undertake not only transportation tasks, but also direct sample manipulation and subsequent analytical measurements. Due to their human-like structure, dual-arm robots perform such processes similar to human operation. Liquid handling is required to transfer chemicals, to prepare standard solutions, or to dilute samples. Two electronic pipettes with different volume ranges (5–200 µL and 50–1000 µL) were integrated into a dual–arm robotic system. The main focus in this publication is the software interface for alternating robot and pipette control as well as the high–level process control system. The performance using a dual–arm robot equipped with electronic pipettes and conventional manual pipettes was determined and compared. The automation system presented is the first integration of a dual-arm robot in analytical measurement processes. Conventional manual laboratory pipettes and electronic pipettes are simultaneously used for liquid-handling tasks. The software control system enables a flexible and user-friendly process generation.

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The use of automated systems in life science laboratories is rising in recent years. Robots play a vital role in laboratory procedures, ranging from chemical analysis to drug development. In high degrees of automation situations, such as transferring plates, adding covers to the plates or transferring bulk liquids, single-arm robots with multiple degrees of freedom are used. Recently, dual-arm robots also draw much attraction due to their flexibility. However, applications of dual-arm robot in life science are still limited. In this paper a dual-arm robot platform, designed for sample preparation and transport in life science, is introduced. As programming for dual-arm robots is more challenging than single-arm robots, especially in life science automation, an efficient and flexible programming method is also discussed. Besides, a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) instrument is also integrated into this platform, which is automatically fed with the samples on 96-well microtiter plates using the robot. A fully automated sample preparation method with subsequent mass spectrometric measurements for fast enantiomeric excess determination of chiral compounds was implemented and applied to the dual-arm robot platform.