The solution from Festo is part of a modular JANUS® G3 liquid handling workstation that is flexible and can be adapted to various customer requirements. The following process steps are taken into consideration in the application:
Separating the different sizes of vials from the rack → identifying specimens → vortexing → opening the cap → placing the opened specimen under a pipette → closing the cap after sampling → placing the vials back into the rack.
Two different types of vials with very different dimensions need to be handled: ThinPrep®: 42 mm dia. x 75 mm high and SurePath®: 33 mm dia. x 52 mm high.
The caps on the vials are flat, and are thus not ideal for automation. This places special demands on opening and closing with a high torque value of up to 2 Nm. Because of the special geometry of the bottom of the vial, even the slightest change in position can make it impossible to place the vials back into the rack.
The customer wanted a fully electric industrial robot that covers a working area including 2 trays with 48 sample vials each. The solution needed to perfectly match the appearance of the overall system as well, without the need to modify the existing platform. Furthermore, a retrofitting option was also required for systems that had already found their way into the market.
Festo developed a total of five subsystems consisting of Festo standard components, a PerkinElmer® JANUS® G3 workstation, and a customized rotary gripper module.
Thanks to close cooperation with the customer, the complexity of the industrial robot was reduced to a minimum. The industrial robot (3-dimensional gantry) uses the existing guides in the JANUS® G3 Workstation so that compact axes can be selected. The rotary gripper module with modified standard gripper is part of the 3-dimensional gantry and is used for picking individual vials from a tray. After the vial has been positively identified by a barcode reader, it’s very rapidly rotated around its vertical axis to make sure the specimen in the vial is mixed with the suspension. The vial is then opened and held under a pipette. The vial is closed again and returned to the tray after sampling.