Figure 1

The robotic system described conducts active-air and settle-plate monitoring as well as surface monitoring using swabs. However, this article reports only on studies done on the surface-sampling capabilities of this robotic system. It is anticipated that in production operations, this system would handle surface and air sampling and that nonviable or total particulate sampling would be automated as well, using currently available technology. The authors hypothesized that a robot that can be programmed in terms of pressure applied to a swab, and also can be programmed to sample a given surface in a highly reproducible manner in terms of area sampled, might actually yield better recovery than a human sampler.

Figure 2

A corollary benefit of an automated approach to microbiological monitoring will be near elimination of false positives (2). The system reported in this article requires no manipulation by human operators either in preparing samples or in handling them. Also, because the sampling materials can be identified automatically by barcode, the control system can correlate the sample identification with location and time that are then stored electronically (1). All sample materials are vapor-phase-hydrogen-peroxide-decontaminated before use.