Abstract: Material transfer/interrogation devices (e.g. liquid handling workstations) have been designed in the past for transferring material from a source to a destination location or for interrogating a material at a location, where the locations remain fixed. The invention provides methods and apparatuses for transferring or interrogating materials by one or more carrier devices to one or more receiving devices, where the carrier and receiving devices move independently and simultaneously on multiple axes. In some embodiments, one or more of the carrier and receiving devices can move along an X, Z, Y, and Theta axis, which allows the source and destination locations to rotate and translate relative to each other. Due to this rotation and translation, containers can be positioned to minimize the distance traveled between a pick location from the source and a place location on the destination, greatly increasing the speed at which material transfer can occur.

Abstract: An incubator for storing micro-plates or micro-tubes comprises a handling robot positioned between shelves or drawers containing micro-titer plates or other containers useful for biological based reactions. The advantages of this configuration are the ultimate compactness of the system and increased speed or reliability achieved with more than one robot being able to access the same plate or tube. Alternative embodiments standardize the spacing and configuration of a robot track and a shelf track such that a shelf and a robot are interchangeable in a track.