A Colony Picking Robot with Multi-Pin Synchronous Manipulator

With rapid development of biotechnology, laboratory automation plays a vital role in reducing the manual operation of laboratory personnel and improving the efficiency of scientific research. Especially more and more genomes have been sequenced in recent years, researchers face the task of managing vast clone libraries. As a result of the low picking efficiency and accuracy, manual picking can’t meet the high-throughput experimental requirement. Automation picking techniques can reduce the experimental time, and accelerate project progress. This paper presents a novel and simple design of colony picking robot with a multi-pin synchronous manipulator. It can achieve picking, inoculation, cleaning and heating simultaneously, which provides an estimated throughput rate of 2400 colonies/hr. The sterilization method is implemented that the picking needle is sterilized twice in 2 seconds and heated at 400°C. Visual servo control as critical control principle of automated colony pickers is used to identify individual colonies. It helps determine their locations and control the picking tool to pick up these colonies. Through the static analysis of the picking structure in the picking process, it is found that the deformation of the picking structure meets the positioning accuracy of 0.1 mm. The colony picking instrument with multi-pin synchronous manipulator can ensure fast and accurate colony picking in the Automated laboratory system.