Patent ID: 11921127
Assignee: HIGHRES BIOSOLUTIONS, INC.
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G  B | IPC B  G

Claim 10:
11. A laboratory system comprising:
a plurality of lab workstations distributed in a lab, the workstations including at least one human operated workstation and at least one robot automated workstation, each of which is configured to run jobs of a work process;
at least one auto-navigating robot processing vehicle including a processing section configured for holding a sample holder, wherein the at least one auto-navigating robot processing vehicle is arranged to transport the sample holder to and from different lab workstations of the plurality of lab workstations; and
a controller communicably connected to the plurality of lab workstations and the at least one auto-navigating robot processing vehicle, wherein the controller is configured:
to receive operational job data characterizing each of a number of different jobs that define the work process, each job being run on at least one of the human operated workstation and the robot automated workstation,
receive system data from, and describing a state of the at least one auto-navigating robot processing vehicle, and the at least one of the human operated workstation and the at least one robot automated workstation, and
based on the operational job data and the system data, schedule and coordinate each of the number of different jobs that define the work process for the at least one auto-navigating robot processing vehicle and the at least one human operated workstation and the at least one robot automated workstation, so that each job is performed in coordination at different workstations of the at least one of the human operated workstation and the at least one of the robot automated workstation effecting the work process defined by the different jobs;

wherein:
the controller is further configured to command autonomous navigating robot processing vehicle moves to the different of the at least one human operated workstation and the at least one robot workstation so the autonomous navigating robot processing vehicle moves are sequenced according to the coordinated number of different jobs, wherein the sequenced moves describe a process flow of the defined work process; and
the controller has a resolver configured to: monitor the coordination of the different jobs at the different workstations and a corresponding sequence of the auto-navigating robot processing vehicle moves of the process flow to the different workstations, and change the auto-navigating robot processing vehicle moves and the different workstations so as to optimize the process flow from a first sequence of auto-navigating robot processing vehicle moves characterizing the process flow first, to a second sequence of auto-navigating robot processing vehicle moves characterizing an optimized process flow, the second sequence being different from the first sequence.