Robotics company ABB in conjunction with Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*STAR) Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre (ARTC), the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) and the Diagnostics Development (DxD) Hub, are working together to expedite COVID-19 testing in Singapore via new robotics labs.

To accomplish this, robots from ABB have been deployed in automated COVID-19 testing labs called Rapid Automated Volume Enhancers (RAVEs). There, the robots take over assorted repetitive and potentially dangerous tasks from human lab workers such as moving test tubes and transferring liquids via pipettes. This reportedly allows for the processing of as many as 4,000 test samples per day — an estimated four times the number of those processed by hand.

Source: ABB

According to its developers, the RAVEs reduce the potential for COVID-19 test contamination and infection rates among lab workers.