Method of determining a handover position and laboratory automation system

• US 10,197,586 B2
• Filed: 03/29/2018
• Issued: 02/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Roche Diagnostics Operations Incorporated (Roche Holding AG)
• Original Assignee: Roche Diagnostics Operations Incorporated (Roche Holding AG)
• Inventors: Sinz, Achim, Mahmudimanesh, Mohammadreza
• Primary Examiner(s): Wright, Kathryn
• Application Number:
  US15/939,360
• Publication Number:
  US 20180217176A1
• Time in Patent Office: 313 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2035/0406 Individual bottles or tubes
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2035/0465 Loading or unloading the conveyor
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2035/0477 Magnetic
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2035/0491 Position sensing, encoding; closed-loop control
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2035/0494 Detecting or compensating piositioning errors
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 35/0099 comprising robots or similar manipulators robots per se B25J
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 35/04 Details of the conveyor system G01N35/021 - G01N35/028 take precedence

Abstract

A method for determining a handover position of a gripping device and to a laboratory automation system being able to perform such a method are presented. A position determining device is used in order to determine a handover position based on magnetic forces of a handover electro-magnetic actuator that is part of a laboratory sample distribution system of the laboratory automation system.

Claims

1. A method of determining a handover position of a gripping device, wherein the gripping device is assigned to a laboratory sample distribution system having a transport plane and a plurality of electro-magnetic actuators positioned below the transport plane and wherein the handover position is assigned to a handover electro-magnetic actuator, the method comprising:

grabbing, by the gripping device, a position determining device such that the position determining device is held fixedly by the gripping device, wherein the position determining device comprises a magnetically active device;

positioning the position determining device, while being held by the gripping device, on the transport plane;

activating the handover electro-magnetic actuator such that it generates a magnetic field interacting with a magnetic field generated by the magnetically active device such that an attractive force is applied on the position determining device;

moving the position determining device, while being held by the gripping device, by the attractive force to a first position;

detecting the first position; and

determining the handover position based at least in part on the first position.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the handover position is determined as being identical to the first position.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein determining the handover position comprises,

moving the position determining device, by the gripping device, on the transport plane in each of a group of directions for a given amount of displacement, every time starting from the first position, to a respective intermediate position;

after each step of moving in a direction, moving the position determining device while being held by the gripping device to a respective further position by the attractive force;

detecting each respective further position; and

determining the handover position based at least in part on the respective further positions.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the group of directions comprises two, three or four directions.

5. The method according to claim 3, wherein all directions contained in the group of directions are arranged with equal angle between each two circularly neighboring directions.

6. The method according to claim 3, wherein the given amount of displacement is less than 10 mm.

7. The method according to claim 3, wherein the given amount of displacement is less than 5 mm.

8. The method according to claim 3, wherein the given amount of displacement is less than 3 mm.

9. The method according to claim 3, wherein the handover position is determined as a center of a polygon defined by the further positions.

10. The method according to claim 3, wherein the handover electro-magnetic actuator is deactivated before each step of moving the position determining device in one of the directions and is reactivated after that step.

11. The method according to claim 3, wherein the first position and/or the further positions are represented by planar coordinates on the transport plane after being detected.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein positioning, by the gripping device, the position determining device on the transport plane is performed such that the gripping device is positioned over or besides the handover electro-magnetic actuator.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein positioning the position determining device, while being held by the gripping device, on the transport plane is performed manually.

14. The method according to claim 1, wherein electro-magnetic actuators surrounding the handover electro-magnetic actuator are activated such that they generate respective magnetic fields interacting with the magnetic field generated by the magnetically active device such that a repulsive force is applied on the position determining device at least during each step of moving the position determining device by the attractive force.

15. The method according to claim 1, wherein the position determining device comprises a number of rolls or ball-bearings for contacting the transport plane.

16. A laboratory automation system, the laboratory automation system comprising:

a plurality of analyzing stations;

a number of gripping devices;

a position determining device fixedly held by at last one of the number of gripping devices;

a laboratory sample distribution system comprising

a number of sample container carriers configured to carry one or more sample containers, each sample container carrier comprising at least one magnetically active device,

a transport plane configured to support the sample container carriers,

a number of electro-magnetic actuators stationary arranged below the transport plane, the electro-magnetic actuators configured to move a sample container carrier on top of the transport plane by applying a magnetic force to the sample container carrier, and

a control device configured to control the movement of the sample container carriers on top of the transport plane by driving the electro-magnetic actuators such that the sample container carriers move along corresponding transport paths, wherein for each gripping device, a handover electro-magnetic actuator is assigned out of the number of electro-magnetic actuators, wherein a sample container is to be handed over to or from the gripping device while a sample container carrier carrying the respective sample container is positioned above the handover electro-magnetic actuator; and

a process control unit, wherein the process control unit is configured to control the gripping devices and the laboratory sample distribution system such that a method according to claim 1 is performed.

17. The laboratory automation system according to claim 16, wherein the magnetically active device of the position determining device generates a stronger magnetic field than each of the magnetically active devices of the sample container carriers.