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A flexible IT infrastructure for the integration of smartglasses into the brewing laboratory as a digital support for standard analysis workflows
J. Austerjost, M. Bargholz, M. Porr, D. Geier, T. Becker, D. Marquard, P. Lindner, T. Scheper and S. Beutel

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are an often-used medium for the reproducible step-by-step execution of complex laboratory operations. Even in today?s era of digitalization, most SOPs are still paper-based. This might cause disorder within the lab and often distracts the experimenter from the actual experiment. Furthermore, most of the experimental documentation nowadays is still done manually by transferring experimental data and results in paper-based laboratory journals, which is quite sensitive to errors as well as time-consuming. We developed a digital laboratory infrastructure that enables interactive hands-free experiment guidance and instrument control via smart safety goggles, also called smartglasses. Instructions for an SOP and experimental data can be displayed directly into the experimenter?s field of view and triggered by voice commands. Experimental data and working steps can be processed and documented instantly. The developed laboratory infrastructure allows for the flexible integration of laboratory instruments and SOPs. Different SOPs commonly used for the spectrophotometric analysis of beer (MEBAK methods) were implemented showing the applicability of the established system in the brewing laboratory. Furthermore, a benchmark study of the system was performed. The developed solution enables a faster experiment execution and analysis than conventional paper-based SOPs and is a first step towards the integration of smart safety goggles for the support of laboratory workflows. This might pave the way to easier process documentation and an increase of laboratory workflow efficiency.

Descriptors: smartglasses, laboratory automation, wearables, assisted reality

BrewingScience, 72 (January/February 2019), pp. 1-9