Lab automation drones for mobile manipulation in high throughput systems

In this paper, a lab automation drone notional concept is introduced. Here, a robotic limb is attached to a robotic rotorcraft. The limb's gripper allows the unmanned aerial vehicle to dexterously manipulate objects such as micro-arrays and test tubes often used in high throughput systems (HTS). The resulting drone could augment existing HTS operations. The 6 degree-of-freedom (DOF) arm and gripper design are presented. Test-and-evaluation approach and results are also given.