Cloud-Enabled, Reactive Liquid Handling Robot

We introduce a robotic system developed to perform artificial chemical life experiments
based on droplet systems. These experiments are particularly well
suited for automation because they often stretch over long periods of time, possibly
hours, and often require that the human takes action in response to observed
events such as changes in droplet velocity, size, count, shape, or clustering or
declustering of multiple droplets.
We describe a robotic system designed to automate this type of artificial chemical
life experiment. We verify the design by successfully applying it to three
different experiments: i) automating an experiment whose purpose it is to measure
the movement response of a droplet as a function of distance to a reagent,
ii) aspirating a moving droplet when the droplet speed goes below a specified
threshold, and iii) detecting clustering of droplets and dispensing a salt droplet
at a specific distance to the cluster. We demonstrate how our robot cannot only
automate these experiments, collect data, and interact with the experiments in a
closed feedback loop, but also enable chemists to perform formerly infeasible
experiments.
Another aspect of our work is that we designed, implemented, and deployed a
cloud-based user interface for a distributed system of liquid handling robots. The
user interface is intuitive, as well as being easily extensible for new experimental
protocols in biological and chemical laboratories. The user interface developed
can control the robot on multiple platforms and devices. Remote control of the
robotic system enhances effective use of time and usability. The open source
software for the user interface allows users to customize the experiment protocols
based on their requirements. Furthermore, as multiple users use our robotic
platform, quality, reusability, deployability, and maintainability of software become
central and crucial for efficient use of the robot. Our cloud solution enables
users to share experiment code, and reuse already developed protocols for experiments.
Therefore, the robotic system can be used simultaneously by multiple
users, and users can work on the same experiment collaboratively. Furthermore,
a user is able to run experiments on several robotic systems at a time and hence
increase throughput through parallelism.
Performing reactive experiments in artificial chemical life research is made possible
with this robotic platform. In addition, a cloud-based user interface provides
new opportunities by enabling real time control of the robot on multiple
platforms, making collaborative work on the robot possible as well as parallelizing
experiments.