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DELab automation for research laboratories
Lab automation
Racks between benches, plates into the reader, tubes into the climate chamber — through the night when the protocol asks for it. Built around SBS format labware and the narrow aisles of a real research lab, and commissioned by your own team.
The four jobs it takes off your bench
Not a lab line and not a rebuild. A mobile pair of hands for the work between the instruments you already own.
Sample logistics between benches
Racks, tubes and plates travel from bench to instrument to storage without anyone carrying them there. The route is planned rather than improvised, and it does not get shorter when the lab gets busy.
Plate handoffs into your instruments
3D perception places SBS format labware into readers, incubators and climate chambers repeatably — in bright light and in the dark. The handover is the part that usually fails; it is the part this was built for.
Runs that outlast the shift
A protocol that needs a read at three in the morning no longer needs a person in the building at three in the morning. The instrument time you already paid for stops idling overnight.
A record of who moved what, and when
Every transport is logged, so a result stays traceable back to the hand that did not touch it. Floor plans, maps and scans remain yours and remain inside the GDPR.
Proof
Filmed in a working research laboratory, together with Fraunhofer IPA
What you are watching is not a render and not a showroom. It is a research laboratory at Fraunhofer IPA: benches in use, a climate chamber, racks of amber vials, a scientist who keeps working while the robot passes behind her.
That is the honest test for a research lab. Not whether a robot can move, but whether it can move through a room that was never designed for it — past the stool someone left out, around the trolley that was not there yesterday.
Setup
Commissioned by the people who work there
The time-lapse shows a complete commissioning: position the robot, teach the handover points, start the workflow. No robotics expertise, no integrator on a day rate, no re-plumbing of the laboratory.
This matters more than it sounds. A deployment that depends on an external specialist also stops when that specialist is booked somewhere else. This one does not.
What has to be true before a robot belongs in a research laboratory
It has to speak SBS
Hardware and gripper are built around SBS format labware — the microplate footprint your readers, incubators and storage units already expect. Nothing has to be re-racked into a proprietary carrier before the automation will touch it.
It must not force a software decision
The solution is software-agnostic. It joins the scheduler, LIMS or ELN you already run instead of asking you to replace it. A research group that has spent three years on its data pipeline should not have to trade that pipeline for a robot.
It has to fit the aisle you actually have
Research laboratories are narrow and they change weekly. Navigation is designed for dynamic, confined spaces rather than for a cleared corridor, so the room does not have to be tidied into a shape the robot prefers.
It has to be safe beside people
The robot works alongside the team rather than behind a fence. Nobody has to leave the bench before it can run, and nobody has to wait for it to finish before they can come back.
It has to be repairable
The majority of components are sourced in Europe, and repair centres are in Germany, France and the USA. Electronics and raw materials go back into circulation rather than into a container.
Pharmaceutical laboratories
A pharmaceutical laboratory is a research laboratory with a paper trail. The handling is the same — racks between benches, plates into instruments, runs that outlast the shift — but every movement has to survive an audit.
That is why the transport record matters here as much as the transport. Each move is logged with time, origin and destination, so the chain of custody for a sample can be reconstructed without asking who was on shift that night. Floor plans, maps and scans stay inside your building and under the GDPR.
And to be plain about the limit: this is not a validated GxP system out of the box, and we will not claim it is. Qualification is a project that runs in your quality system, with our documentation as input. If a supplier prints “GMP-compliant” on a robot datasheet, ask them which document they mean.
What it is not
It is not a lab line, and it will not out-run one. If your samples arrive in identical batches on a fixed route every day, a fixed installation is the better buy. This is for the laboratory where the protocol is the variable.
The robot underneath
uLab Mobile — the platform this runs on
The solution described here runs on uLab Mobile: a mobile base with a collaborative arm and 3D perception, already in daily service in laboratory medicine.
The difference on this page is the configuration, not the machine. A diagnostic line wants throughput on a fixed route. A research laboratory wants a pair of hands that copes with a protocol that changed on Tuesday.
Responsibly built
Sourced in Europe
Majority of components are sourced in Europe.
Repairable
Efficient support team always available. Robot repair centers close to you in Germany, France and USA.
Recyclable
We value the concept of circular economy. The electronics & raw materials used for our robots are reused & recycled with a growing focus on lowering our energy consumption.
Safety and data protection
Floor plans, maps and scans recorded in your laboratory belong to you and are handled under the GDPR. Nothing about the layout of your building leaves it.
Talk to someone who has done this in a lab
Tell us the two transports that cost you the most time. An engineer replies within two working days — with an answer, not a brochure.
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