NIST Autonomous Research Laboratories for Materials Exploration and Discovery

Autonomous research laboratories (also known as self-driving labs) accelerate the scientific process - letting scientists fail smarter, learn faster, and spend less resources in their studies. This is achieved by placing machine learning in control of automated lab equipment, i.e., putting machine learning in the driver’s seat. The user defines their goals and the machine learning then selects, performs, and analyzes experiments in a closed loop to home in on those goals. By integrating prior knowledge into the machine learning framework, even greater accelerations can be achieved. Knowledge sources include theory, computation, databases, and human intuition. In this talk I will discuss NIST’s diverse set of autonomous labs for materials exploration and discovery. I will also discuss how integrating external knowledge boosts their performance.