Projects

Current Projects

for biochemistry related projects, please login at the following page:

http://lara.uni-greifswald.de/planned-biochemistry-projects/

Open Lab-automation and Robot control software Projects

(please contact Dr. Mark Dörr )

Fully dynamic and previewing process scheduler for LARA software package (Master/PhD Thesis level)

Objectives

    • the movement of reagent containers should be scheduled fully dynamically: all changes in the process should be dynamically rescheduled
    • addition of processes shall be dynamically addable in the current schedule
    • the scheduler shall perform statistics on plate movements and duration in devices to automatically generate heuristics for improved planning
    • current state of a process shall be reliable saved to recover from a crash
    • flexible and robust communication between driver layer and abstract process layer

Programming environment

Linux system, C++, python, SQL database system (e.g. sqlite or MySQL)

Error tolerate process control system (Master/PhD Thesis level)

Most current lab automation systems have only a very limited sense of their state and the state of the process. Computer Vision and Machine Learning could improve the error tolerance and flexibility of such systems.

Objectives

  • monitoring the state and position of each container in the system by Comuter Vision
  • making small autonomous corrections to the scheduling of a process, if an correctable error occurs
  • learning decisions based on general rule sets
  • error recovery in case of system halts

Programming environment

Linux system, C++, openCV, python, SQL database system (e.g. sqlite or MySQL)

SiLA complient drivers for small lab automation devices (Bachelor Thesis level)

Objectives

SiLA is a currently developed standard for lab automation device communication (http://www.sila-standard.org/).  Our project shall lay the foundations of open source SiLA conform drivers with the following properties:

  • Interface RS-232/434 to WebServices
  • WebServices based communication
  • Error reporting and handling
  • devices like movable container tables, incubators, plate readers

Programming environment

Linux system, C++/python, SQL database, XML

Web based experiment reporting system (Bachelor Thesis level)

Objectives

Web based system for visualization of current robot processes and experimental results using modern web technologies

Programming environment

LAMP system, html5, python django, SQLdatabase, SVG, XML

Multi-Parameter Experiment design (Master/PhD Thesis level)

Objectives

Robot experiments cover a very high demensional parameter space. Aim of this work should be to develop a software that selects suited parameters that cover most interesting areas of the parameter space (Keyword: Design of experiments).

Programming environment

Linux system, C++/python

Code optimization of the LARA software package (Bachelor Thesis level)

Objectives

The LARA software package is a tool for planning and designing robotic processes using the workflow paradigm of biochemists. It translates (compiles) this workflow into device specific “machine code” to actally control the robots. A proof-of-principle draft of this idea has already been realized and is used to generate complex robot programs. This project shall improve the stability and speed of the current code and extend it to the communication with a database system.

Program environment

Linux system, python, Qt4 (pyQT4), pyhton-django