Abstract
Reliable medical laboratory automation requires robots to complete entire workflows in protocol order while handling changes during execution. A robot may execute each motion correctly yet fail the workflow by confusing visually similar stages or stalling after human intervention. We present Robo-MLT, a dual-system framework that couples explicit workflow monitoring with learned action generation. A vision--language planner composes an ordered atomic-skill sequence from the protocol and the initial workspace observation. A multiframe execution monitor detects when the active skill has completed or become infeasible, then advances the workflow or triggers replanning. A skill-conditioned vision--language--action policy generates the manipulation trajectories, and an asynchronous runtime coordinates it with the monitor. We evaluate Robo-MLT against four policy baselines and a VLM-based monitor baseline on blood gas analysis and blood sample tube sorting, with 50 nominal configurations per method and 20 sample-removal configurations. Robo-MLT achieves task success rates of 82\% and 70\%, exceeding $\pi_{0.5}$ by 30 and 22 percentage points, respectively. After an operator removes the sample being handled, the system revises the remaining plan and continues processing the other samples. These results indicate that, under the evaluated conditions, explicit workflow monitoring makes long-horizon laboratory manipulation more reliable and recoverable.
Abstract (translated)
URL
https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.13039
