Scales of Instrumentation and Automation

Back in September I moved into a product role within the automation unit at Ginkgo, where we sell autonomous laboratories.  I'm going to end up posting a bunch on the topic, as I spend a lot of time thinking about it and this is an interesting place to expose my thinking to critique.  It's also a way to solicit feedback on semi-formed ideas.  I referenced autonomous laboratories in my previous post, which might have some wondering "what exactly is an autonomous laboratory?"  So this post will lay out a description of different levels of automation (or instrumentation) so I can refer back to it in future posts - and there will certainly be further posts focused on these different scales of automation. So here I will lay out four levels of laboratory instrumentation: Bench, Walkup, Workcell and Autonomous.  BTW, if you are in San Francisco next week during J.P. Morgan,  there will be a small autonomous lab running in the Marriott Marquis lobby - and it can be viewed regardless of whether you are registered for the conference

Sequencing Instrument Outlook 2026