.NET Parameterize-Tool for Pipet-Instruments

Tecan Schweiz AG develops various instruments and devices to support the daily tasks in a laboratory. Many of these instruments have motor-driven parts which move items (water tubes, tablets of wells etc.) from one station to another. During engineering, numerous motor control parameters need to be evaluated to program an optimal machine configuration. However, the current machine parameterization tool has two major shortcomings: Firstly, it is not implemented with standard Tecan library, the Tecan Base SDK. Secondly, it is written in the less known scripting language LUA. As this has led to deviations and inconsistencies in the past, Tecan aims to develop a new parameterization tool in C# using the common Tecan Base SDK.
The task of this semester thesis is to determine the requirements of this new parameterization tool and to design and implement a first version of the tool in C# and with the Tecan Base SDK.
In the first phase of the project, all the requirements for the new tool have been analyzed and formally defined. In the second phase, the essential functionality required for the framework has been implemented. During the implementation, it became soon apparent that the primary functionality of the Tecan Base SDK is not yet sufficient to realize the tool. Therefore, the mid-level SDK functionality as well as the low-level SDK communication had to be additionally used to transmit selective firmware commands.
As a result of the project, the first version of the parameterization tool has been completed, supporting the configuration of the essential parameters, the execution of simple moves on the machines and the visualization of performed movements. This shows that the parameterization use cases can be realized and covered with the C# software tool on the top of the Tecan Base SDK.
The only - and intended - limitation is that the tool does no longer support ad-hoc adjustments of any scripting code at the engineering time. In the future, the new tool can be extended to cover more functionality and reach the same functional level as the existing LUA program. Moreover, extra supporting tasks may be added in a next version, such as the automatic version control of the
different parameter sets.