Automating the Process of Measuring Chemical Substances in Samples : Using a Motorised Sampling Platform

Sammanfattning: Performing measurements of samples that contain chemical substances is a time consuming task if the measurement instruments are small and require high precision. A single measurement session can often contain a large amount of samples, which is why it is crucial to automate this process. The solution, which is discussed in this report, is a Graphical User Interface that allows a user to control three linear motors that can move in the X-, Y-, and Z-axis. Movement of the motors results in the movement of the sampling platform, which allows a measurement instrument to be inserted and ejected from each sample with a much higher precision than a human is capable of. Automating the process does not only result in a more accurate and precise measurement process, but also a more efficient process, since the sample size can be decreased. By decreasing the sample size, it is also possible to increase the number of samples to perform measurements on. The results shows an increase in accuracy and a reduction of the required supervision over the sampling process. Moreover, our solution also reduces power consumption since the equipment used in the analyses requires less uptime.