Show HN: How to increase Covid-19 test throughput by 46.5x (wet-robots.ghost.io)

This is likely an already known trick. However, if it isn't, it is a way that computer science can be applied to greatly increase testing throughput and proportionately reduce the cost of RT-PCR viral RNA testing.

Can someone with better knowledge either confirm the method is already known, or perhaps comment on whether or not this would even work.

Thank you.

That is assuming you can detect one part positive when mixed with 92 parts negative?

You could make the method more robust by sacrificing a few bits for error correction. For example, by using a Hamming code: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_code.

Also, PCR robotor already exist. Not many around though.