How modular Smart Carts and compact liquid handling platforms are enabling assay-centric automation and scalable workflows.
Rethinking Liquid Handling: From Fixed Platforms to Distributed Automation
Laboratory automation has historically been built around a simple assumption: that liquid handling sits at the centre of the laboratory. For decades, large, static liquid handling platforms have served as the core of automated workflows, with instruments, incubators and detection systems arranged around them. While this model has supported many successful automation strategies, the increasing complexity and diversity of modern research workflows is beginning to expose its limitations.
Today’s laboratories operate in an environment defined by evolving assays, rapidly changing experimental priorities, and the need to scale workflows without rebuilding entire automation platforms. In this context, the traditional “one large liquid handler per automation system” model is increasingly being challenged by a more flexible concept: distributed liquid handling.
A collaboration between automation specialist PAA (Automation Holdco Ltd.) and Veon Scientific illustrates how this shift is beginning to reshape laboratory infrastructure.
Liquid Handling that Moves with the Workflow
Veon Scientific’s i.prep2 advanced liquid handling system is designed as a compact, modular liquid handling unit capable of performing high-precision pipetting tasks without the footprint or cost of traditional large platforms. When combined with PAA’s modular Smart Cart automation infrastructure, the result is a mobile liquid handling ecosystem in which liquid handling modules can be deployed exactly where they are needed in the workflow.
Rather than routing every plate or sample through a single central liquid handling station, laboratories can distribute liquid handling capabilities across multiple automation modules. Smart Carts act as mobile automation units that can host instruments, integrate robotics and interface seamlessly with scheduling and orchestration software. When equipped with compact liquid handlers, such as the i.prep2, each module becomes a self-contained processing node capable of executing specific assay steps.
Underpinning the system, PAA’s orchestration and scheduling software coordinates Smart Carts, instruments and liquid handling modules into a unified automation ecosystem, enabling distributed workflows to operate as a single integrated platform.
This architecture allows laboratories to design assay-centric workflows, rather than forcing experiments to adapt to the constraints of fixed automation hardware.
Liquid Handling Built for Modular, Scalable Laboratories
The i.prep2 is a next-generation compact liquid handling platform designed for modern, flexible laboratories. Built for both standalone operation and system integration, it delivers high-precision automated pipetting in a small footprint that fits easily on a bench, within a biosafety cabinet, or inside modular automation systems. Its modular design, open control architecture and workcell-ready accessibility allow researchers and automation engineers to embed liquid handling wherever it is needed in a workflow, enabling assay-centric automation
rather than hardware-centric systems.
i.prep2 Key Features
- Compact, automation-ready footprint
- Independent multi-channel pipetting
- Wide pipetting range
- Configurable multi-zone deck
- Open integration architecture
- Visual and programmable workflow design
- Workcell-ready accessibility
- Scalable deployment
When deployed across multiple Smart Cart modules, the i.prep2 enables distributed liquid handling, allowing laboratories to scale capacity, create parallel workflows and bring automation directly to the assay rather than routing experiments through a single central platform.
Next Generation Modular Automation Platforms
The SMART CART is a fully managed, modular automation platform that enables rapid deployment, continuous adaptability, and predictable operating costs, reducing capital investment. Designed and manufactured by PAA, it reimagines traditional automation architecture, eliminating the need to place high value equipment in confined locations inside fixed automated workcells. Operate the Smart Cart manually during the day, or let Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) handle the workload when capacity needs to scale. This framework offers a more productive, efficient & dynamic use of instrumentation.
Smart Cart and AMR Key Features
- Universal: Plug and play Instruments, robots, consumables or services
- Flexible: Design and build any system configuration or expand existing platforms
- Capable: Self assembling, self-teaching with complete metadata
- Automatic charging: with run time of ~12h before docking required
- Mobile Robot Enabled: Compatible with 3rd-party AMRs
Modular Automation for Flexible Laboratories
The concept of distributed automation aligns closely with the growing trend toward modular laboratory infrastructure. Instead of large monolithic automation systems that require significant capital investment and physical space, modular platforms allow laboratories to expand incrementally as research needs evolve.
Smart Carts provide the mechanical and integration framework for this model. Instruments mounted on mobile automation platforms can be repositioned, redeployed, or reconfigured without major system redesign. When paired with smaller, modular liquid handling units, laboratories gain the ability to scale liquid handling capacity by adding additional modules rather than upgrading an entire central system.
This distributed approach also improves equipment utilisation. Liquid handling tasks can occur in parallel across multiple modules, reducing workflow bottlenecks and enabling more efficient scheduling of automated processes.
Lower Barriers to Automation
Another important advantage of modular distributed automation is accessibility. Traditional large liquid handling systems often represent one of the largest capital investments in an automation platform. By contrast, compact liquid handling systems such as the i.prep2 operate at a fraction of the cost of many conventional platforms.
This dramatically lowers the barrier for laboratories seeking to automate new workflows or expand automation into additional research areas. Instead of committing to a single high-capacity system, laboratories can adopt automation gradually, deploying modules where they provide the greatest impact.
The result is an automation strategy that is not only more flexible but also more financially sustainable.
Automation Anywhere
As laboratories increasingly adopt modular automation strategies, the idea of “automation anywhere” is gaining traction. Mobile automation modules equipped with compact liquid handling systems allow workflows to evolve alongside scientific discovery. New assays can be integrated, workflows reconfigured, and throughput scaled without replacing existing infrastructure.
By combining Veon Scientific’s modular liquid handling technology with PAA’s Smart Cart automation platforms, laboratories gain a distributed automation architecture capable of adapting to the realities of modern research.
In an era where flexibility, scalability, and speed of discovery are paramount, the future of laboratory automation may not revolve around a single central instrument, but around a network of intelligent, mobile automation modules working together to support science wherever it happens.
The Bottom Line
Laboratory automation is not about owning robots, it’s about owning the workflow. Organisations that invest in modular, orchestrated and intelligent automation today are building the foundation for faster science, better data and sustainable growth tomorrow.
Written By: Dr Helen V. Bennett, Director of Scientific Strategy & Jon Newman-Smith, Research & Development Director
PAA
+44 (0) 1252 373000
paa-automation.com
Veon Scientific
+44 (0) 1234 417317
veonscientific.com