  Laboratories are being increasingly automated. In small laboratories
individual processes can be fully automated, but this is usually not
economically viable. Nevertheless, individual process steps can be performed by
flexible, mobile robots to relieve the laboratory staff. As a contribution to
the requirements in a life science laboratory the mobile, dextrous robot Kevin
was designed by the Fraunhofer IPA research institute in Stuttgart, Germany.
Kevin is a mobile service robot which is able to fulfill non-value adding
activities such as transportation of labware. This paper gives an overview of
Kevin's functionalities, its development process, and presents a preliminary
study on how its lights and sounds improve user interaction.
