uLab — Laboratory Cobots

Two products with the same name and very different integration questions.

uLab Uno — stationary. Sits at a bench, does one job, is coupled to laboratory devices.

uLab Mobile — the cobot on a mobile base. This is the one that raises the questions this platform exists for: it moves, so it needs maps, localisation and everything under Transport; and it manipulates, so it needs the device couplings below.

Device couplings

The couplings to laboratory devices exist as several gRPC device APIs. Their READMEs explain operation and image processing — but not the interface. That gap is what this chapter has to close, and it cannot be closed by reading the repositories alone: how a device is laid out for a customer's process is an application question, and it lives with the application specialists, not in a repository.

What belongs here and what does not

Belongs here: the contracts. Which gRPC service, which messages, which error cases, what happens when a device does not answer, and how a run is picked up after an interruption.

Does not belong here: the layout of a specific customer process. That is project documentation.

Status of this page

Scheduled together with uGo+. Until then the honest statement is: the couplings work, and their interface is not written down anywhere.