Sample Changer Robot (at PX beamlines) Elke Zimoch EPICS Workshop 2008

Why using a Sample Changer Robot? Reliability Shorter mounting time (than average user) Never tired Reduced beamline access by users Automation Mail-in crystallography and remote access to beamlines On the way to full automatic crystallography … interesting new technology … … do not tell this to the financial department

Robot Setup - Schema as complete system available from IRELEC Sample Dewar Robot Controller Robot Console IOC TCP/IP User GUI EPICS VAL3 – Robot Language Tcl/Tk StreamDevice from Stäubli company

Robot Setup – Real World Beamline Beam Sample Mount Position Sample Dewar Controller

Programming Details Where to put the details of movement? Into the IOC: Flexibility: the robot can perform any movement remotely (do you want this?) Feedback needed over network Into the Robot Controller: Language optimized for six axis robot (all this vector and matrix algorithms) Programmer defines what the user can do (pre-defined movements)

Medm Screen (for experts) pre-defined robot commands Environment settings Start pre-defined movements => Too complicated for beamline users

User GUI Select a cassette 2. Select a sample (from this cassette) Click here 2. Select a sample (from this cassette) Click here 3. Mount this sample (previous mounted samples will be unmounted first) Click here

Beamline Environment 1. Hardware: Stable repeatable environment needed (absolute coordinates) Beamline State Machine ESCAPE (in testing) in the meantime: Scripts to move to „Robot Mount Position“ Laser Distance Sensor 2. Users: Robot included into Radiation Protection System (no user access during Robot movement)

Conclusion 3 robot systems from IRELEC for PX beamlines installed (1 in Operation, 2 in Test Phase) Main Problems in hardware (icing) not in software Stäubli Robots provide an easy way to interface to external control systems like EPICS 2 more Stäubli Robots installed at other beamlines (Tomography and Material Science) Next step: no sample holder any more, the robot puts the sample into the beam for measurement (“Plate Screening” already tested at SLS)

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