How fast can a purpose-built robot fill a 96-well plate, and does the robot or the number of channels matter more?
research/osrobot-plate
How fast can a purpose-built robot fill a 96-well plate, and does the robot or the number of channels matter more? Eight channels cut the time by 86 to 88 % (9.5 s against 69.7 s for a gantry at 10 µL) while gantry against arm moves it 4 to 14 %, since about 76 % is fixed pipetting actions (stylised; every speed, price and accuracy figure assumed).
What it found
A stdlib model times a 96-well plate fill on an XY gantry and a two-link arm with 1 or 8 channels. At 10 µL per well one channel takes 69.7 s (gantry) or 66.7 s (arm); eight channels take 9.5 and 9.0 s. Channel count cuts the time by 86–88%; robot type moves it by 4–14%, because 76–79% of the time is fixed aspirate and dispense actions, so well order saves only about 2%. Which robot is faster flips with the assumed speeds; the 8-channel gantry is cheapest per plate-hour by a small margin. With assumed joint noise the arm misses the 1.5 mm well radius often enough to hit all 96 wells with probability 0.005. Stylised: every speed, price and accuracy figure is assumed.
A figure from its own output
Paper, code and results
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Produced with AI assistance (Claude). Results are from the code in this repository and are simulated or stylised unless the abstract says otherwise; nothing here implies affiliation with or endorsement by any lab, researcher or company cited. MIT licensed.