1. Introduction
Mobile laboratories are the laboratories that can be moved anywhere in order to carry out applications ranging from sampling and field testing to simulation. Evaluating and classifying a mobile laboratory in detail is a complex concept because many fields may have a laboratory. Thus, they use different types of vehicles, may include different types of technologies and equipment, hence have different applications. However, although it is an effective and initial step to make such a classification, a classification should include their applications. As a result of such a classification, the basic type of mobile laboratories which can include other few types is given below.
Today, many researchers are interested and therefore studies have been realized on the point of three different research areas and different classification methods of mobile laboratories. Advantages and disadvantages of various vehicles for mobile laboratories used in studies are also given. The scope of many studies has been examined in view of the field where mobile laboratory applications are used. By considering the point of application, it is stated what new technologies are used in this field. Some organize the main section of the study to design and construction stages of the mobile laboratories. Some researchers review the main problems encountered during the work of the mobile labs in the field of application. It can be mainly said that today, with the explosion of the mobile labs’ usage is made in different fields of application and the need for standard regulations emerges. In this framework, in the study, we are going to propose the classification of such these labs with a new approach and standard protocols.
1.1. Definition and Purpose
1.1. Definition and Purpose
Mobile laboratories can be defined as platforms for implementing various types of scientific and mostly diagnostic activities in various settings. Their special feature is their mobility, i.e., the potential to travel across different regions and conduct a range of scientific and diagnostic tests or implement laboratory training for the locals. The main purpose of mobile laboratories is the efficient support of scientific projects and ultimately the improvement of the population’s health.They are also essential tools to deliver a wide range of diagnostics for routine infectious diseases that preoccupy low-income countries.
Furthermore, several developing country R&D projects have as a priority to develop mobile diagnostic capacities, including the ability to implement systematic surveillance in sub-Saharan Africa in countries facing chronic food insecurity and/or emerging potential risk of a fast spread of infectious agents. Subsequently, mobile laboratories are essential tools for emerging infectious diseases, including support to surveillance.
Animal health authorities also need to perform rapid diagnostic and even genotyping molecular biology in the field, as it is necessary for a quick response. In addition, conducting diagnoses to study the spread and coping mechanisms of zoonotic diseases along the value chain is becoming a necessary part of the One World-One Health approach.
The scale of activities to select new specific technologies and develop a new training program is relevant to increasing resilience of society and the scientific community to deal faster and more rationally with emerging infectious diseases and other health hazards.
2. Classification of Mobile Laboratories
The mobile laboratories have differing conceptions of the scope in the application area like automation, testing autonomous agents, embedded systems, communication protocols, event log data, and testing frameworks. Mobile laboratories may also be categorized based on their deployment in different sectors. The various sector-based applications across which mobile labs are established include last mile logistics, drone cargo delivery, ground, sea, and space delivery systems, urban mobility, manufacturer, and industrial applications. We have already discussed the individual sector-based applications in their specific LOs. Thus, the rest of this section is a classification of the area of application of mobile labs by sector with reference to our research to every specific application. Broad classification of mobile laboratories based on the sectors in which they can deploy is given in Figure 9.
There are two functionality-based classifications. MLC and PCI mobile laboratories that have been compared across many attributes including their size, geographical coordinates, running method, etc. Mobility Classification Characteristics are size (small, large), bipedal setup (yes, no), method of running (special, autonomous). The PCI-based Classification Characteristics are Mobility Classification Characteristics, kind of vehicle (ground, air, outer-space), area of application (urban, remote). The last classification in the Mobile labs has been performed on the basis of their geographical scope. In this review, two types of mobile labored systems have been identified – Service. Management Mobility classification-based mobile labs discussed their movement in urban centers, while the PCI-based mobile labs discussed their movement through open environments. Types of mobile labored systems, which have been discussed in this LO. In the robot-based classification, autonomous robotic vehicles continued to be used to carry the mobile laboratory, and continuous progress was made in urban areas. Deployment, coverage (for now only Athens is suggested, but it will be expanded to a global scale).
2.1. Based on Functionality
As per their operational purpose, mobile laboratories have been classified into various categories. On the basis of their functionality, these can range from:
1. Clinical laboratories focused on diagnostic purposes. They have advanced molecular biology equipment. 2. Human Focused Research Laboratories where studies of human disease are conducted. It is often a combination of an animal research setting with necessary laboratory capacity. 3. Food safety laboratories. This may involve the safety control of foods designed to be consumed, or foods involved in the food chain. Tools used are less advanced than in clinical mobile labs. Often basic microbiology and immunochemistry equipment. 4. One Health Research Facilities that allow for rapid testing of animals when animal monitoring is applied to ensure no disease is spread between animals to avoid contact and conflict with other domestic animals. As a remote field facility, the mobile laboratory, dedicated to studying zoonotic disease, must have a stable network.
The functionality of the modern mobile labs ranges from mobile custom labs in vehicles that allow for easy and rapid relocation to custom lab space in which the complex development work can be carried out in an equipment-heavy, research environment. As just mentioned, simulation, supplied and computer models, IT systems, etc. may be elements of two and three where the complexity in the work can range from simple exchange of information to heavily complex tasks. In general, a more complex or specific project will require more elaborate equipment and instrumentation in the MPNL.
2.2. Based on Sector
Mobile laboratories can be classified into six types if we do so by the sector in which they are used. Firstly, the United Nations (UN) defines a Mobile Testing Laboratory (MTL) for communicable disease outbreak settings, for rapid deployment. However, the current mobile laboratory wave, or mobile laboratory revolution, is adapted for the exploration of travel to most any destination. Four sectors that make up the modern mobile laboratory revolution are: (1) automotive testing, (2) aviation testing, (3) fuel testing, and (4) water testing. The fifth and sixth sectors are consultations for “IOM” testing. After the first four sectors, water testing and “IOM” testing, is when mobile laboratories became an everyday assisting service. If we sideline the four sectors water testing and “IOM” fuels mobile laboratories could be used for a fraction of materials.
The operation of each mobile testing laboratory is usually for each specific function (testing) and all 6 sectors are quite different due to the on-board equipment and the complexity of the known testing, which may affect the shape or design of each mobile laboratory. In short, the mobile laboratory is specifically designed to carry out a specific function. Some general machinery used in some of the mobile laboratories are “Photo anemometers, imaging microscopy & photography, thermal testing, overall vibration, and engine noise testing”.
3. Technologies and Equipment Used
Regardless of whether the mobile laboratories are housed in trailers, containers, buses, or SUVs, they all share a core technology and the basic kinds of equipment necessary for diagnosis, identification of biological agents, and forensic analysis. These capabilities are carried out by PCR instruments, real-time PCR systems, laminar airflow hoods (biological safety cabinets/BSCs), microbial incubators, fluorescence microscopes, and computational resources.
PCR (polymerase chain reaction) is a fundamental technology used in forensics and molecular diagnostics. It is a method for rapidly generating billions of identical copies of a DNA region using two oligonucleotide primers and a thermostable DNA polymerase. Real-time (“quantitative”) PCR extends the utility of this technology with the addition of fluorescent probes to monitor DNA amplification quantitatively in a closed system.
Laminar airflow hoods (also known as biological safety cabinets, BSCs) are ubiquitous in laboratories and are used for working with pathogens, diagnostic materials, and other applications that must take place in front of and under a controlled airflow. Microbial incubators create and maintain a favorable environment in which microorganisms can multiply. They fit beneath the work surface and may be stacked with other equipment, with an interior power outlet to plug in a shaker, vortex mixer, or other instruments.
Microscopy enables the visualization and inspection of cells that have been labeled with a suitable fluorescent dye. These cellular constituents can be imaged at the same time or on multiple channels according to their emission spectra. Computational resources are in the form of powerful notebook computers that can be operated via keyboard/mouse or using a touchscreen.
Scientific advances allow the development of improved technologies and equipment that are used in mobile laboratories. A few examples are compact or handheld instruments, in line with miniaturization, which allows for the use of portable power sources, and system integration which saves time and labor. Understanding the technologies and equipment involved in these new systems is essential for properly interpreting the literature and choosing the approach that is best for a specific application.
4. Applications of Mobile Laboratories
Mobile laboratories have diverse applications. They are used on-site for conducting on-the-spot quick analyses and checks, including for the analysis of drains for the presence of fatbergs in place. Mobile laboratories are especially vital for performing on-site environmental and health analyses. These include assessing problems of water supplies and pollution, analyzing pollutants and chemicals, supporting drinking water safety assessments and monitoring. Healthcare mobile laboratory, clinical application for maternal care, triage for optometry and ophthalmology in remote regions, monitoring of infectious diseases and occupational health are other applications of mobile laboratories. They also contribute to examining the physical and mechanical properties of materials, using traditional and modern testing methods and techniques on-site laboratory and facility. Some mobile laboratories may monitor portable natural hazards (mainly seismicity) using a network of mobile sensors and data processing facility. Moreover, the employing of rapid throughput modular laboratories supported by a mobile sink and cold storage can assist in analyzing archaeological museum specimens. Finally, mobile laboratories are also used to monitor plant health.
One of the primary cross-disciplinary applications of mobile labs is environmental monitoring. Wet or aqueous mobile labs support several applications including chemical trajectory analysis, environmental air analysis, rights of way evaluation, and other tasks. There are also several dry laboratories used for occupational health studies, health and safety on movie sets, forensic blood alcohol or drug sampling, and more. All findings suggest that mobile laboratories are undoubtedly used on board ships, oil and gas platforms, drilling rigs or FPSOs. The technologies that are often used include, but are not limited to, several types of wet chemical process analyses to high field magnetometry and kextex thermal transfer measurements.
4.1. Healthcare Mobile Laboratories
4.1.1. Diagnostic purposes
The deployment of mobile laboratories enables rapid, on-site diagnosis of individuals at risk from an epidemic, such as the Ebola virus epidemic of 2014 in West Africa. Primarily, these facilities are similar to temporary field hospitals, staffed by medical professionals and containing medical and microbiological equipment regularly seen in a fixed facility laboratory. For individuals located in the Western world, healthcare services are typically located in hospitals and other treatment centers, fixed and non-mobile; meaning patients travel to them to collect a range of healthcare services including consultation, diagnostics, treatment, and prophylaxis, typically on a ‘walk-in’ or outpatient basis.
4.1.2. Medical purposes
Mobile laboratories, also known as point of care or medical laboratory vehicles, are specially designed vehicles containing laboratory reagents, cobas b 121 POC closed system analyzers, and medical personnel that undertake a range of medical diagnostics, taking the clinical testing directly to the patient. These tests, performed by clinicians and healthcare professionals, vary in complexity and are constantly evolving, though notably HIV testing and cholesterol testing are recent examples of POC tests designed to be used outside of a fixed facility environment. Typically, weight benefits are of great importance to a mobile vehicle, since the vehicle must first visit a depot to load up on supplies and then navigate city roads between the various locations that each vehicle will be visiting. The first choice for many applications is a commercial and passenger vehicle that has been converted and/or adapted for a specific industry purpose. The converted vehicle acts as a regular transportation vehicle for personnel and equipment. In addition to customized storage solutions and racks for transport, the vehicle may have simple sleep-in capabilities with minimal appliances (e.g. small refrigerator, microwave, heater).
4.2. Environmental Monitoring Mobile Laboratories
Environment exploring with the advent of mobile laboratories. 4.2. Environmental monitoring. As the topics of global warming, climate change, biodiversity conservation, etc., have gained more attention in recent years, those environment-related companies, whose main business items comprise product exploitation and sales of any kind, have many guidelines to follow when considering which site is to be maintained at the moment or in the foreseeable future.
Environmental analysis is used in environmental studies and is frequently conducted with the purpose of protecting the natural environment and human health. The aim of this monitoring is to determine the trends of controlled or regulated contaminants in the atmosphere, surface water, cleansed wastewater, and soil. With that, we can assess the effectiveness of particular treatments implemented to solve specific environmental problems.
We can also use this information to develop an environmental forest resources strategy, to give some guidelines for establishing classification. On the design of environmental protection and sustainable development of inland river basin in north China, and also to develop the method of assessment in ecological situation. Furthermore, appropriate precautions are taken to handle the conditions and changes in pollution levels. However, the transport of samples is one of the limiting areas of current environmental monitoring.
With the newly developed integrated mobile labs, the analysis of environmental problems is carried out. That can be helped with mobile laboratory monitoring in the environment—a suitable multifunction analysis from various viewpoints. Environmental monitoring is the process of making analysis over time, on specific areas such as oceans, groundwater, regulations, forests, and wetlands. Environmental monitoring allows for the identification of significant parameters and pollutants that will have the greatest impact.
Tasks for such environmental monitoring plans can be biological, chemical, or physical according to the parameters studied, from the macroscopic indication of the health status of the environment even if an organism is at risk of overexposure to chemicals and factors, to the risk assessment of exhaustion of the ocean carbon sink, to establish the levels of set-up of sustainable development financing environmental policy.
5. Challenges and Future Trends Mobile Laboratories
The enormous potentialities of mobile laboratories highlighted in the previous sections have several problems that are yet to be solved. The first and most important problem is to balance among performance, weight, size, energy, and cooling power, in order to ensure high-throughput analyses in short times. A sufficiently exhaustive review of thermally controlled systems was provided in which the problems that need to be solved as well as the most appreciated solutions were described. In particular, energy consumption was identified as a critical parameter to be optimized, but, unfortunately, authors often did not provide the value of the consumed power by the developed systems.
Several working groups have only recently started to design or use mobile platforms as laboratories to study the physical and chemical characteristics of terrestrial and extraterrestrial samples. A new mobile laboratory concept emphasized that terrestrial and planetary scientists are extraordinarily well equipped and trained for multiple environments and we might best assess alphaness (in terms of analytical and interpretative efficacy) by using as portable approaches as possible. In recent years, the technology for the construction of mobile and in situ laboratories has been significantly improved in all fields, as already presented. Mobile laboratories are in constant evolution. Regarding current technologies, we discuss the state-of-the-art with a final perspective on possible future trends. A few representative examples described in the previous sections offered a glance at the capabilities and potentiality of the most recent mobile systems for in situ and on-site analyses.