Patent Application
20230184799
The present invention relates to a transport device and an analysis system.
PTL 1 discloses, as an example of a laboratory sample delivery system having high transport performance, “a laboratory sample delivery system including: a number of container carriers each including at least one magnetically active device, preferably at least one permanent magnet, and adapted to carry a sample container; a transport plane adapted to transport the container carriers; and a number of electromagnetic actuators disposed below the transport plane in a stationary manner and adapted to move the container carriers above the transport plane by applying a magnetic force to the container carriers.”
PTL 1: Japanese Patent No. 6072052
In a specimen analysis system for clinical examinations, for example, biological samples (samples) such as blood, plasma, serum, urine, and other body fluids (hereinafter referred to as “specimens”) are tested for specified analysis items. In this specimen analysis system, devices having a plurality of functions are connected to automatically execute processing in each step. That is, in order to rationalize works in a laboratory, an analysis unit (analysis step) that performs a plurality of kinds of analysis such as biochemical analysis and immunoanalysis, a pretreatment unit (pretreatment step) that performs a plurality of pretreatments required for these kinds of analysis, and the like are connected by a transport line and used as one specimen analysis system.
In recent years, due to sophistication of medical care and aging of patients, the importance of specimen analysis has been increased. Therefore, in order to improve an analysis processing capability of the specimen analysis system, high-speed transport, mass transport, simultaneous transport, and transport in multiple directions of specimens are desired.
As a background of this technical field, a technique described in PTL 1 is provided.
However, regarding the technique described in PTL 1, in the specimen analysis system, a plurality of container carrier detection devices that detect positions of the magnetically active devices provided on specimen transport carriers are required. In addition, since these container carrier detection devices are required to be disposed on a transfer surface side, a dedicated printed circuit board is required. Therefore, there is a problem of resulting complication of the device and an increase in cost.
In view of such circumstances, the invention provides a transport device capable of detecting a position of a specimen transport carrier with high sensitivity without using a container carrier detection device, and an analysis system including the transport device.
The invention includes a plurality of manners for solving the above-described problems, and one example of these manners is a transport device for transporting a transport container provided with a magnetic body to a target position, the transport device includes: a plurality of magnetic poles each including a core and a coil wound around an outer circumferential side of the core; a drive unit configured to apply a voltage to the respective coils of the plurality of magnetic poles; a current detection unit configured to detect a current value flowing through the coil; a calculation unit configured to estimate a position of the transport container based on the current value detected by the current detection unit; and a storage unit configured to store a current change amount for each magnetic pole when a pulse voltage of a fixed value is applied to the coils of the plurality of magnetic poles in a state where the magnetic body is not on the transport surface. In the transport device, the calculation unit estimates the position of the transport container based on a deviation between a current change amount of a coil acquired at a time of detecting the position of the transport container and the current change amount of the corresponding coil in the state where the magnetic body is not present, which is stored in the storage unit.
According to the invention, a position of a specimen transport carrier can be detected with high sensitivity without using a container carrier detection device. Problems, configurations, and effects other than those described above will be clarified with the following description of embodiments.
Hereinafter, embodiments of a transport device and an analysis system according to the invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In the drawings used in this description, the same or corresponding components are denoted by the same or similar reference numerals, and repeated descriptions of these components may be omitted.
A first embodiment of a transport device according to the invention will be described with reference to
First, an overall configuration and a configuration of each unit of the transport device will be described with reference to
The transport device 1 according to the present embodiment as shown in
The transport device 1 is a device for transporting a transport container 20 (see
The permanent magnet 10 is provided in the transport container 20. A permanent magnet such as neodymium or ferrite is used for the permanent magnet 10. In the first embodiment, the permanent magnet 10 is used for description, but other magnets or soft magnetic bodies may be used instead of the permanent magnet 10. In addition, the permanent magnet 10 and a soft magnetic body may be used in combination.
Usually, the transport surface 15 that supports the permanent magnet 10 is provided between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10, and the permanent magnet 10 moves on the transport surface 15 in a sliding manner.
As shown in
A magnetic body called a yoke that connects each magnetic pole 25 may be provided on a surface of each magnetic pole 25 opposite to the transport surface 15 side.
In addition to the series resistor 31, the current detection unit 30 may be, for example, a portion using a current transformer, a portion in which a Hall current sensor is used, or the like, and is not limited to these.
The drive unit 50 is connected to the power supply 55 which is an AC power supply or a DC power supply such as a battery, receives a current from the power supply 55, and applies a voltage to each of the coils 21 of the magnetic poles 25 to move the transport container 20.
The calculation unit 40 calculates a relative positional relationship between the core 22 and the permanent magnet 10 based on a current value detected by the current detection unit 30 and calculates a position of the permanent magnet 10 within the transport device 1. In addition, the calculation unit 40 determines a timing of supplying a current necessary for driving the permanent magnet 10 from the drive unit 50 using calculated positional information of the permanent magnet 10, and causes an appropriate coil 21 to supply the current.
A storage unit 45 is a storage medium in which various parameters and set values for controlling operations of each instrument of the transport device 1, various computer programs for executing various kinds of display processing, and the like are stored, and is formed by a semiconductor memory such as a flash memory, a magnetic disk such as an HDD, or the like.
The storage unit 45 of the present embodiment particularly stores a current change amount for each magnetic pole 25 when a pulse voltage of a fixed value is applied to the coils 21 of the plurality of magnetic poles 25 in a state where the permanent magnet 10 is not on the transport surface. Details thereof will be described later.
The calculation unit 40 and the storage unit 45 may be implemented by software running on a general-purpose computer, or may be implemented by dedicated hardware or a combination of software and hardware.
In the transport device 1, a voltage is applied to the coils 21 of the magnetic poles 25 to excite the magnetic poles 25 based on a target transport path. As a result, the permanent magnet 10 disposed in the transport container 20 slides above the plurality of magnetic poles 25 (between the magnetic poles 25) and on the transport surface 15, so that the transport container 20 equipped with the permanent magnet 10 can be transported in any desired direction.
When one magnetic pole 25 is excited, the transport containers 20 on the magnetic poles 25 vertically or horizontally adjacent to the magnetic pole 25 are attracted, and when the magnetic poles 25 are densely laid out, the plurality of transport containers 20 are likely to collide with each other, and therefore, as shown in
In the transport device 1, relative positional information between the permanent magnet 10 and the magnetic poles 25 is required. The positional information is used to allow an electromagnetic force, which is generated in the core 22 by applying a current to the coil 21 of the magnetic pole 25, to act efficiently on the permanent magnet 10, and to move the permanent magnet 10 in a desired direction.
For example, a case is assumed where the permanent magnet 10 is located above (right above) one of the two magnetic poles 25. The permanent magnet 10 does not generate a thrust force in a transport direction even if a voltage is applied to a coil 21a of a magnetic pole 25a directly below the permanent magnet 10.
On the other hand, when a voltage is applied to a coil 21b of a magnetic pole 25b that is not above (right above) the permanent magnet 10, a force that attracts the permanent magnet 10 to the magnetic pole 25b is generated, and the thrust force in the transport direction is generated.
That is, by applying the voltage to the coil 21 of the desired magnetic pole 25, the permanent magnet 10 can efficiently generate a force in the transport direction. Then, by selecting the coil 21 of the magnetic pole 25 to which the voltage is applied, an orientation (direction) of the force in the transport direction can be controlled.
Position detection of the transport container 20 on the transport path will be described. When the permanent magnet 10 is present above the magnetic pole 25 on a near side in
Here, a magnetic field acting on the magnetic pole 25 closer to the permanent magnet 10 and a magnetic field acting on the magnetic pole 25 farther from the permanent magnet 10 have different magnitudes. That is, the magnitude of the magnetic field acting on the magnetic pole 25 changes depending on a relative position between the permanent magnet 10 and the magnetic pole 25.
The core 22 is formed of a magnetic body, and has a property that a magnetic flux passing through the core 22 becomes difficult to pass as the magnetic flux increases. Here, when a voltage is applied to the coil 21 to flow a current, a magnetic flux (magnetic field) generated by the current is generated in the core 22. Therefore, in the core 22, a magnetic flux caused by the permanent magnet 10 and a magnetic flux generated by the current flowing through the coil 21 are generated.
In general, when a current flows through the coil 21, a magnetic field is generated around the coil 21, and the generated magnetic flux is proportional to a current value flowing through the coil 21. This proportional constant is called inductance. However, in a circuit including a magnetic body such as the core 22, the inductance changes due to a saturation characteristic of the core 22.
When the core 22 saturates, the inductance changes according to a magnitude of the magnetic flux generated in the core 22. That is, the inductance of the coil 21 changes depending on the magnitude of the magnetic flux of the permanent magnet 10. This means that the inductance of the coil 21 changes depending on the position of the permanent magnet 10. That is, when there is a magnetic field from the permanent magnet 10, magnetic saturation occurs in the coil 21 and magnetic permeability decreases, and therefore, the current flowing through the coil 21 changes.
Therefore, when a voltage is applied to the coil 21, inductance L can be obtained by calculation by detecting the current flowing through the coil 21 and how the current flows. That is, by detecting the inductance L of the coil 21, which changes depending on the position of the permanent magnet 10, the position of the permanent magnet 10 at which the inductance of the coil 21 is affected can be obtained.
Therefore, the drive unit 50 is connected to the coil 21 of the magnetic pole 25, and the current detection unit 30 that detects the current value flowing through the coil 21 is provided (for example, a resistor is disposed). Then, the drive unit 50 applies a voltage to the coil 21, the current detection unit 30 detects a current value generated by the voltage, and the calculation unit 40 reads the value.
A voltage waveform, which is applied to the coil 21 in order to detect the position of the transport container, and a corresponding current waveform in the transport device 1 will be described.
A magnitude (V) and a pulse width (T) of a voltage pulse 60 shown in
The transport device 1 includes the current detection unit 30 that detects a current, and is capable of detecting the position of the transport container 20 based on the current value detected by the current detection unit 30 and measured by the calculation unit 40. That is, the position of the transport container 20 is detected by detecting a change amount of a rising or falling current of a position detection pulse detected by the current detection unit 30.
As shown in
As described above, the position detection (position estimation) of the transport container 20 can be performed using a coil current (or current flowing through a shunt resistor).
As described above, the plurality of magnetic poles 25 are used to drive the transport container 20 on the transport surface 15, but there are variations among the plurality of magnetic poles 25, and electrical characteristics are not exactly the same.
For example, not only variations in characteristics of the coil 21 itself such as resistance and inductance, but also variations in characteristics of units constituting a magnetic circuit such as the core 22 and the yoke, and furthermore variations in characteristics of circuit elements used in the drive unit 50 that supplies a current to the coil 21 and the current detection unit 30 are inevitably present.
The principle of position detection based on the current change amount described above can be applied as it is when the variation between the magnetic poles 25 is small. On the other hand, the present inventors have found that an error may occur when detecting the position in a case where the variation between the magnetic poles 25 is large. In such a case, the error caused by the variation is solved by the following configuration.
As shown in
As shown in
Therefore, it is assumed that a relationship of the current change amount with respect to a distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10 is different for each of the coils 21 of the plurality of magnetic poles 25 arranged in the device, and the relationship of the current change amount with respect to the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10 shown in
Then, the calculation unit 40 performs position estimation processing based on the relationship of the current change amount with respect to the distance between each magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10, which is stored in the storage unit 45, when estimating the position of the transport container 20 based on a deviation between a current change amount of the coil 21 of the magnetic pole 25 acquired at a time of detecting the position of the transport container 20 and a current change amount of the coil 21 of the corresponding magnetic pole 25 in the state where the permanent magnet 10 is not present, which is stored in the storage unit 45.
In this way, by using information of the corresponding position detection characteristic for each coil 21 of the magnetic poles 25 used to detect the position of the transport container 20, the variation in the characteristics of the magnetic poles 25 can be absorbed. Instead, it is necessary to evaluate in advance the characteristic shown in
This method can be performed using, for example, a method of actually using a transport container to acquire current characteristics for all the magnetic poles 25, or a jig in which the same number of permanent magnets are arranged at the same positions as the magnetic poles 25, or the like.
Here, when transporting the transport container 20, the transport is not performed by applying only a pulse voltage having a single fixed value, but an absolute value and a duty ratio of a pulse voltage to be applied may be changed as appropriate according to a transport speed, a transport distance, and transport settings.
Therefore, the relationship of the current change amount with respect to the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10 for each magnetic pole 25, which is stored in the storage unit 45, is not necessary to be a pulse voltage having a single fixed value, and for all of the coils 21 of the plurality of magnetic poles 25, it is desirable to apply in advance pulse voltages having different duty ratios and fixed values or pulse voltages having different voltage magnitudes, obtain a current change amount for each magnetic pole 25 at that time, and store the obtained current change amount in the storage unit 45.
Next, effects of the present embodiment will be described.
The above-described transport device 1 according to the first embodiment of the invention is a device that transports the transport container 20 provided with the permanent magnet 10 to a target position, the transport device 1 includes: the plurality of magnetic poles 25 including the core 22, 22a, or 22b, and the coil 21 wound around an outer circumferential side of the core 22, 22a, or 22b; the drive unit 50 that applies a voltage to the respective coils 21 of the plurality of magnetic poles 25; the current detection unit 30 that detects the current value flowing through the coil 21; the calculation unit 40 that estimates the position of the transport container 20 based on the current value detected by the current detection unit 30; and the storage unit 45 that stores the current change amount for each magnetic pole 25 when the pulse voltage of the fixed value is applied to the coils 21 of the plurality of magnetic poles 25 in a state where the permanent magnet 10 is not on the transport surface. In the transport device 1, the calculation unit 40 estimates the position of the transport container 20 based on the deviation between the current change amount of the coil 21 acquired at the time of detecting the position of the transport container 20 and the current change amount of the corresponding coil 21 in the state where the permanent magnet 10 is not present, which is stored in the storage unit 45.
As a result, in the transport device 1 that detects the transport container 20 based on the current change amount without using a detection device, it is possible to absorb the difference in the electrical characteristic of each of the plurality of magnetic poles 25 constituting the transport device 1, and achieve the low-cost sensorless transport device 1 with high reliability due to high sensitivity.
In addition, the storage unit 45 stores the relationship of the current change amount with respect to the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10, so that the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10 can be specified with higher accuracy, and the position of the transport container 20 can be detected with higher accuracy.
Furthermore, the storage unit 45 stores the current change amount when a pulse voltage having a different duty ratio and a fixed value is applied to the coil 21, so that the position detection can be performed with higher accuracy according to settings during actual transportation.
In particular, the storage unit 45 stores the relationship of the current change amount with respect to the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10 for each pulse voltage having a different duty ratio and a fixed value, so that the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10 can be specified with higher accuracy for each magnetic pole 25.
In addition, the relationship of the current change amount with respect to the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10, which is stored in the storage unit 45, is different for each of the plurality of coils 21 arranged in the device, and therefore, accuracy of position detection in all the magnetic poles 25 can be made very high, and more reliable transportation can be achieved.
A transport device according to a second embodiment of the invention will be described with reference to
In the transport device 1 according to the present embodiment, unlike the first embodiment, the relationship of the current change amount with respect to the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10, which is stored in the storage unit 45, is common to the plurality of coils 21 arranged in the device.
As described above, in the transport device 1, the plurality of magnetic poles 25 have variations in the electrical characteristics, and therefore, as shown in
However, the difference in the current change amount between the case where the transport container 20 is present and the case where no transport container 20 is present can be regarded as being substantially the same for each magnetic pole 25 as shown in
That is, the position detection characteristic indicating the difference between the case where the transport container 20 is present and the case where no transport container 20 is present can be dealt with by acquiring such a position detection characteristic for at least one coil 21 in advance before shipping a product.
Other than that, it is only necessary to obtain in advance a current change amount at each coil position in a state where no transport container is present on the transport surface, as shown in
Specifically, all the coils 21 in the transport device 1 are excited according to a predetermined procedure, and the current change amount in the transport device 1 is acquired and stored in the storage unit 45. Regarding a scanning order of the coils 21, the arrangement of the coils 21 may be scanned continuously as shown in
A timing of acquiring these relationships may be before product shipment, or at the time of initializing or resetting the transport device 1. Alternatively, even if there is a transport container 20 on the transport surface 15, if no transport container 20 is present around a position of a coil 21 of interest, the relationship acquisition will not be affected, and therefore, the relationship acquisition may be performed periodically at a timing when no transport container 20 is present around the position of the coil 21 of interest.
Other configurations and operations are substantially the same as the configurations and operations of the transport device according to the first embodiment described above, and details thereof are omitted.
The transport device according to the second embodiment of the invention also exerts substantially the same effects as that of the transport device according to the first embodiment described above.
In addition, the relationship of the current change amount with respect to the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10, which is stored in the storage unit 45, is common for the plurality of coils 21 arranged in the device, and therefore, compared to the transport device 1 according to the first embodiment, man-hours for setting can be reduced, and a transport device 1 having a lower cost than that of the first embodiment can be obtained.
A transport device according to a third embodiment of the invention will be described with reference to
As shown in
Therefore, the magnetic poles 25a4, 25a5, and 25a7 at the outermost periphery of the transport surface may differ from the magnetic poles 25a1, 25a2, 25a3, and 25a6 at other positions in the current change amount (position detection characteristic) with respect to the position of the transport container 20. When the difference is large, with the adjustment as in the second embodiment, there remains room for improving the accuracy of the position detection of the transport container 20 by the magnetic poles 25a4, 25a5, and 25a7 at the outermost periphery of the transport surface 15.
Therefore, in the present embodiment, the relationship of the current change amount with respect to the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10 is stored in the storage unit 45 as different relationships for a coil 21 located at an end portion of the transport surface 15 and for other coils 21 among the plurality of coils 21 arranged in the device.
In the present embodiment, prior to the product shipment, the position detection characteristic (see
When detecting the position of the transport container 20, for the magnetic poles 25a4, 25a5, and 25a7 at the boundaries of the transport surface 15 and other magnetic poles such as the magnetic pole 25a1, corresponding position detection characteristics are used respectively.
Other configurations and operations are substantially the same as the configurations and operations of the transport device according to the first embodiment described above, and details thereof are omitted.
The transport device according to the third embodiment of the invention also exerts substantially the same effects as that of the transport device according to the first embodiment described above.
In addition, the relationship of the current change amount with respect to the distance between the magnetic pole 25 and the permanent magnet 10, which is stored in the storage unit 45, is different for the coil 21 located at the end portion of the transport surface and for other coils 21 among the plurality of coils 21 arranged in the device, and therefore, the variation in the electrical characteristic can be corrected relatively easily compared to the second embodiment, and the position of the transport container 20 can be detected with high accuracy by all the magnetic poles 25 in the transport surface 15, so that more stable transportation can be achieved. In addition, man-hours for setting are not required as much as in the first embodiment, and cost reduction also can be achieved.
An analysis system according to a fourth embodiment of the invention, to which the transport device according to the first to third embodiments is preferably applied, will be described with reference to
Numbers of the analysis devices 102 and the transport devices 1 vary depending on a type of a specimen to be analyzed and an analysis content, and may be one or more.
In addition, various specimen pretreatment and post-treatment units that perform pretreatments and post-treatments on a specimen in the transport container 20 are provided. Detailed configurations and the number of the specimen pretreatment and post-treatment units are not particularly limited, and one or more configurations of a known pretreatment device can be adopted.
The control computer 101 controls the entire system, such as designation of a transport path on which the transport container 20 is transported and an analysis order. In addition, the control computer 101 performs a designated operation in response to an instruction input from an operator.
The processor 201 is formed by a CPU, an MPU, and the like. The memory 202 stores various data, operation parameters, and the like. The position detection unit 203 performs calculation for the position detection of the transport container 20. The coil drive unit 205 applies a voltage to a coil terminal 204 to drive the coil 21. The input device 206 is formed by an input and output port for serial communication, parallel communication, and the like, a keyboard, a mouse, a touch panel, and the like. The output device 207 is formed by a display, a printer, and the like.
A corresponding relationship with the transport device 1 shown in
Other configurations and operations of the transport device are substantially the same as the configurations and operations of the transport device according to the first embodiment described above, and details thereof are omitted. Incidentally, instead of or in addition to the transport device according to the first embodiment, the transport device according to the second or third embodiment can be used.
The embodiments and accompanying drawings show specific embodiments and implementation examples in accordance with principles of the present disclosure, but these embodiments and implementation examples are used for the purpose of understanding the present disclosure, and not used to interpret the present disclosure in a limited way.
It should be understood that the present embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable a person skilled in the art to implement the present disclosure, but other implementations and forms are also possible, and various modifications in configuration or structure and substitutions of various elements may be made without departing from the technical scope and spirit of the present disclosure. Therefore, the following description should not be interpreted as being limited thereto.
For example, in the embodiments described above, control lines and information lines that are considered to be necessary for description are shown, which do not necessarily indicate all control lines and information lines in a product. All of the configurations may be connected to each other.
In addition, the present disclosure described above can also be implemented by a program code of software that implements the functions of the embodiments. In this case, a storage medium in which the program code is stored is provided to a system or a device, and a computer (or a CPU or an MPU) of the system or the device reads the program code stored in the storage medium.
In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium implements the functions according to the embodiments described above, and the program code itself and the storage medium storing the program code constitute the present disclosure.
Examples of the storage medium for supplying such a program code include a flexible disk, a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magnet-optical disk, a CD-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, and a ROM.
An operating system (OS) or the like running on the computer may perform a part or all of the actual processing based on an instruction of the program code, and the function of the above-described embodiments may be implemented by the processing.
After the program code read from the storage medium is written in a memory of the computer, the CPU or the like of the computer may perform a part or all of the actual processing based on the instruction of the program code, and the functions of the above embodiments may be implemented by the processing.
The program code of the software for achieving the functions according to the embodiments may be stored in a storage unit such as a hard disk or a memory of the system or the apparatus or a storage medium such as a CD-RW or a CD-R by distributing the program code via a network, and the computer (or the CPU or the MPU) of the system or the device may read and execute the program code stored in the storage unit or the storage medium at the time of use.
1: transport device
15: transport surface
10: permanent magnet (magnetic body)
20: transport container
21, 21a, 21b: coil
22, 22a, 22b: core
25, 25a, 25a1, 25a2, 25a3, 25a4, 25a5, 25a6, 25b: magnetic pole
30: current detection unit
31: resistor
40: calculation unit
45: storage unit
50: drive unit
55: power supply
60, 61: voltage pulse
70
a, 70b: current waveform
71
a, 71b: current change amount (amplitude)
100: analysis system
101: control computer
102: analysis device
201: processor
202: memory
203: position detection unit
204: coil terminal
205: coil drive unit
206: input device
207: output device
208: bus
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-095630 | Jun 2020 | JP | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/JP2021/005415 | 2/15/2021 | WO |
