Automated preparation of medication in specific dosages

Tylent Technologies has developed an innovative system for the automated preparation of injectable drugs in patient-specific doses. At the core of the project lies the XPlanar system from Beckhoff, which has opened up new application horizons for system designers.

The preparation of infusion drugs in personalized doses is one of the most complex and critical processes in the clinical environment. Dosing accuracy, microbiological safety, end-to-end traceability and operational continuity are essential requirements, particularly for high-criticality therapies such as oncology, biologics and patient-specific treatments.

Over the past twenty years, intravenous compounding automation solutions have largely relied on architectures derived from traditional industrial automation: monolithic systems, highly serialized processes and extensive use of anthropomorphic robotic arms. In many cases, pneumatic solutions have also been adopted to simplify actuator complexity and motion control. While well established, these design choices introduce structural limitations in terms of scalability, process parallelism, fine motion control and operation in environments where airborne particulate control is critical and regulated, resulting in bottlenecks that are difficult to eliminate. It is from this legacy industry design approach that the Lyvra™ project was born. Developed by Tylent Technologies, a company of the GPI S.p.A. Group, Lyvra™ aims to rethink the architecture of automated compounding systems from the ground up.

End-to-end automation, safety and traceability

The entire system is designed as a fully automated, end-to-end process, from initial material loading to the final packaged product ready for administration, without missing steps or manual interventions to complete the workflow.

Each preparation is seamlessly and uniquely identifiable tracked throughout the entire process. Information relating to the drug, dosage, patient and ward is automatically marked on the final product, while waste handling is managed through self-sealing containers, reducing operator exposure and contamination risks.

This approach delivers concrete and well-established benefits: reduced drug waste, increased safety for both patients and operators, and a significant reduction in pressure on highly qualified human resources, which are still often engaged in manual activities or supported by partial or outdated automation technologies.

Modularity and parallelism as architectural principles

Tylent’s approach is based on a key principle: moving beyond serial automation towards a natively modular architecture, composed of replicable and reconfigurable workstations capable of operating in parallel and dynamically adapting to different workloads, priorities and preparation types.

The enabling element of this paradigm is XPlanar, Beckhoff’s intelligent transport system with magnetic levitation. The contactless and independent movement of movers on a two-dimensional plane makes it possible to decouple the process flow from fixed paths and rigid sequences, allowing dynamic routing of individual carriers and the simultaneous execution of multiple operations.

“XPlanar allowed us to design a truly parallel system, in which each process unit can be managed and routed independently, without the constraints typical of linear architectures,” explains Alessandro Jurman, R&D Manager at Tylent Technologies.

Fully electric system design with broad wireless communication

In intravenous compounding automation, the use of pneumatics has often represented a design shortcut to reduce the complexity and number of required actuators. However, this approach introduces significant challenges in terms of calibration, stability and contamination management, especially in applications requiring high precision and repeatability.

Tylent Technologies has instead adopted a fully electric architecture, in which all movements are handled by integrated electromechanical solutions and deterministically controlled via EtherCAT. In particular, the use of two Beckhoff motor families with integrated drives and absolute multiturn encoders has made it possible to significantly reduce the number of sensors, optimizing system components with both design and economic benefits. These include the ASI8100 compact integrated stepper motor drive for low-speed, space-constrained applications, and the AMI8100 compact integrated servo drive with integrated brake for vertical movements. Thanks to these design choices, the Lyvra™ system implements sophisticated motion functionalities while maintaining compactness, reliability and ease of integration.

This approach is complemented by a broader concept of wireless system design. Not only does the surface formed by planar motor modules eliminate mechanical connections and friction, but the electronic equipment itself is also distributed in an innovative way. Tylent Technologies has developed original electronic solutions, currently patent-pending, integrated directly on board the Beckhoff movers. As a result, the movers evolve from simple transport elements into intelligent mobile workstations, capable of executing process functions, acquiring data, interacting with vision systems and actively contributing to overall process orchestration.

This design significantly increases system efficiency, scalability and reconfigurability, while reducing cabling, critical connection points and overall integration complexity.

PC-based control architecture and functional integration

Managing a high variability of formats, volumes and dynamic behaviors – ranging from small-volume syringes to flexible bags exceeding one liter – requires tightly integrated control of motion, vision and process logic. Tylent Technologies has selected a Beckhoff PC-based architecture, in which motion control, vision, safety and HMI are integrated within the single development and runtime environment TwinCAT. In particular, the CX2062 Embedded PC and C6032 ultra-compact Industrial PC, running TwinCAT, control the entire machine, while EtherCAT ensures deterministic real-time communication between the XPlanar system, the integrated drives, vision systems and field devices.

This level of integration enables adaptive motion profiles, safe handling of partially filled loads and variable geometries, while maintaining precision and safety even under complex dynamic conditions. Variability, which is intrinsic to clinical compounding, is therefore addressed not through dedicated solutions or process exceptions, but as an integral part of the control architecture. To fully exploit the flexibility offered by the mechatronic system, Tylent Technologies is complementing the conventional control software with an orchestration platform based on machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms, designed to coordinate and optimize every process step. The goal is to maximize overall system performance by dynamically adapting operational flows to different clinical and production scenarios, while maintaining rigorous control over safety, traceability and process quality.

A new generation of intravenous compounding automation

The project developed by Tylent Technologies represents a substantial evolution in intravenous compounding automation. “The capabilities of XPlanar and the TwinCAT automation system, together with collaboration with a partner like Beckhoff—strongly focused on research and development—were decisive in our choice of solution,” concludes Alessandro Jurman.

The combination of native modularity, process parallelism, intelligent mobile workstations and deep integration with the Beckhoff ecosystem makes it possible to overcome the limitations of traditional architectures and to address the complexity of modern clinical compounding in a structured and scalable way.