The ELARA project brings together robotics software, digital twins, and sovereign AI infrastructure to explore how complex laboratory processes can be automated safely and efficiently.
Environmental laboratories handle thousands of samples, often involving changing workflows, small batches, and potentially hazardous substances. This variety makes traditional robot automation particularly challenging.
Together with CURRENTA and T-Systems, Wandelbots is exploring a more flexible approach through ELARA (Environmental Laboratory Automation and Robotics for Analytics). The project uses digital twins to simulate and validate laboratory processes before bringing robots into the physical environment.
By combining Wandelbots NOVA, NVIDIA Isaac Sim, and T-Systems' sovereign Industrial AI Cloud, the partners can develop and test robotic workflows in a physics-based virtual environment. The simulation helps identify potential issues early and assess how different laboratory tasks could be automated. The first laboratory workflows have already been recreated digitally, their economic viability assessed, and the technical setup defined.
The long-term goal is to enable robots to take over repetitive tasks such as pipetting and sample handling, including procedures involving potentially hazardous substances. This could improve workplace safety, shorten processing times, and give laboratory specialists more time for complex analytical work.
ELARA is currently focused on establishing the technical foundation for future robot-assisted laboratory operations, with Wandelbots NOVA providing the software layer to transfer validated workflows to physical robots at a later stage.
