Autonomous Experimentation

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Overview

Autonomous experimentation studies how to close the loop between proposing a question, choosing an experiment, collecting results, and using them to guide the next step, in both physical laboratories and computational research. Common approaches include Bayesian optimization and active learning for selecting measurements, reinforcement learning and evolutionary search for control, and language-model agents that plan protocols and coordinate instruments or code. These methods can make costly or slow settings—such as materials synthesis, microscopy, chemistry, and machine-learning model development—more systematic and efficient. Real-world demonstrations are growing, but reliable execution, safety, evidence validation, and sustained improvement remain difficult; benchmarks increasingly test complete experimental trajectories rather than plans or final scores alone.

Latest papers

CardsList

148 papers26 papers in the last four weeks, up 86% on the four weeks before. 0.2% of all new papers.

  1. Accelerating battery research with an interoperable interface between FINALES and Kadi4Mat

    Apr 29, 2026Giovanna Tosato (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Leon Merker (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Helmholtz Institute Ulm +4Materials ScienceScientific Workflow Automation

    Institute for Applied Materials - Microstructure Modeling and Simulation (IAM-MMS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany · Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany · TUM School of Natural Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Chair of Digital Catalysis, Munich +6

  2. Automated Adversarial Collaboration for Advancing Theory Building in the Cognitive Sciences

    Apr 28, 2026Suyog Chandramouli, George Kachergis, Akshay JagadishMulti-Agent LLM SystemsComputational Cognitive Modeling

    Department of Psychology, Princeton University · Department of Psychology, Stanford University · Princeton AI Lab, Princeton University

  3. Accelerating Quantum Materials Characterization: Hybrid Active Learning for Autonomous Spin Wave Spectroscopy

    Apr 26, 2026William RatcliffActive LearningMaterials Science

    NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA

  4. Autonomous Reliability Qualification of Ga2_2O3_3-based Hydrogen and Temperature Sensors via Safe Active Learning

    Apr 22, 2026Davi Febba, William A. Callahan, Anna Sacchi +1Active LearningAutonomous Experimentation

    Materials Science Center, National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), Golden, CO 80401, USA

  5. MIND: AI Co-Scientist for Material Research

    Apr 15, 2026Geonhee Ahn, Donghyun Lee, Hayoung Doo +3AI Agents for Scientific DiscoveryAutonomous Experimentation

    Institute for Multiscale Matter and Systems (IMMS), Ewha Womans University, Seoul 03760, Republic of Korea

  6. Agentic LLM Reasoning in a Self-Driving Laboratory for Air-Sensitive Lithium Halide Spinel Conductors

    Apr 13, 2026Yuxing Fei, Bernardus Rendy, Xiaochen Yang +7Autonomous ExperimentationLaboratory Automation

    Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States · Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States · Energy Storage Research Alliance, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, United States +2

  7. Autonomous Diffractometry Enabled by Visual Reinforcement Learning

    Apr 13, 2026J. Oppliger, M. Stifter, A. Rüegg +7Autonomous ExperimentationLaboratory Automation

    Physik-Institut, Universität Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland · Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, United Kingdom · Department of Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 RPU, United Kingdom +3

  8. Camyla: Scaling Autonomous Research in Medical Image Segmentation

    Apr 12, 2026Yifan Gao, Haoyue Li, Feng Yuan +3Autonomous Research AgentsAutonomous Experimentation

    University of Science and Technology of China · Shanghai Innovation Institute · Shanghai Jiao Tong University +1

  9. Deep Researcher Agent: An Autonomous Framework for 24/7 Deep Learning Experimentation with Zero-Cost Monitoring

    Apr 7, 2026Xiangyue ZhangAutonomous Research AgentsAutonomous Experimentation

    The University of Tokyo

  10. AutoSOTA: An End-to-End Automated Research System for State-of-the-Art AI Model Discovery

    Apr 7, 2026Yu Li, Chenyang Shao, Xinyang Liu +13Autonomous ExperimentationAutonomous Research Agents

    Department of Electronic Engineering, BNRist, Tsinghua University · Zhongguancun Academy · Peking University +1

  11. PATHFINDER: Multi-objective discovery in structural and spectral spaces

    Apr 5, 2026Kamyar Barakati, Boris N. Slautin, Utkarsh Pratiush +2Autonomous ExperimentationMulti-Objective Optimization

    Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA · Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Science Tokyo, Yokohama, Japan

  12. Efficient and Principled Scientific Discovery through Bayesian Optimization: A Tutorial

    Apr 1, 2026Zhongwei Yu, Rasul Tutunov, Alexandre Max Maraval +13Bayesian OptimizationScientific Discovery

    The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) · Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab · University of Science and Technology of China +5

  13. AlphaLab: Autonomous Multi-Agent Research Across Optimization Domains with Frontier LLMs

    Mar 31, 2026Brendan R. Hogan, Xiwen Chen, James T. Wilson +5Autonomous Research AgentsAutonomous Experimentation

    Morgan Stanley

  14. Quality-Controlled Active Learning via Gaussian Processes for Robust Structure-Property Learning in Autonomous Microscopy

    Mar 31, 2026Jawad Chowdhury, Ganesh Narasimha, Jan-Chi Yang +4Active LearningPhysics-Informed ML

    Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA. · Department of Physics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, 70101, Taiwan.

  15. Toward Full Autonomous Laboratory Instrumentation Control with Large Language Models

    Mar 25, 2026Yong Xie, Kexin He, Andres Castellanos-GomezLaboratory AutomationAutonomous Experimentation

    Key Laboratory of Wide Band-Gap Semiconductor Technology, School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China · 2D Foundry Research Group. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM-CSIC), Madrid, E-28049, Spain.

  16. AgentChemist: A Multi-Agent Experimental Robotic Platform Integrating Chemical Perception and Precise Control

    Mar 25, 2026Xiangyi Wei, Fei Wang, Haotian Zhang +6Laboratory AutomationAutonomous Experimentation

    School of Computer Science and Technology, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China. · School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China. · School of Data Science and Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China. +1

  17. Toward an automated science of the mind

    Mar 22, 2026Akshay K. Jagadish, Milena Rmus, Kristin Witte +3Autonomous Scientific DiscoveryScientific Discovery

    Princeton AI Lab, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA · Institute for Human-Centered AI, Helmholtz Munich, Neuherberg, Germany · Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, 80539, Germany

  18. Embodied Science: Closing the Discovery Loop with Agentic Embodied AI

    Mar 20, 2026Xiang Zhuang, Chenyi Zhou, Kehua Feng +10AI Agents for Scientific DiscoveryAutonomous Experimentation

    Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China · Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Shanghai, China · Tongji University, Shanghai, China

  19. Novelty-Driven Target-Space Discovery in Automated Electron and Scanning Probe Microscopy

    Mar 17, 2026Utkarsh Pratiush, Kamyar Barakati, Boris N. Slautin +4Deep Kernel LearningScanning Transmission Electron Microscopy

    Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA · Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA · Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99354, USA

  20. Toward Experimentation-as-a-Service in 5G/6G: The Plaza6G Prototype for AI-Assisted Trials

    Mar 17, 2026Sergio Barrachina-Muñoz, Marc Carrascosa-Zamacois, Horacio Bleda +6Autonomous ExperimentationWireless Communications

    Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC/CERCA), Barcelona, Spain

  21. Auto Researching, not hyperparameter tuning: Convergence Analysis of 10,000 Experiments

    Mar 16, 2026Xiaoyi LiLarge Language Model-Guided NASAutonomous Experimentation

  22. Human-AI Collaborative Autonomous Experimentation With Proxy Modeling for Comparative Observation

    Mar 13, 2026Arpan Biswas, Hiroshi Funakubo, Yongtao LiuAutonomous ExperimentationBayesian Optimization

    University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA · Department of Material Science and Engineering, Institute of Science Tokyo, Yokohama, 226-8502, Japan · Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA

  23. Large Language Model-Assisted Superconducting Qubit Experiments

    Mar 9, 2026Shiheng Li, Jacob M. Miller, Phoebe J. Lee +14Autonomous ExperimentationLanguage Model-Based Control

    Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA · Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA · Pico group, QTF Centre of Excellence, Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University School of Science, P.O. Box 13500, 00076 Aalto, Finland +2

  24. AutoResearch-RL: Perpetual Self-Evaluating Reinforcement Learning Agents for Autonomous Neural Architecture Discovery

    Mar 7, 2026Nilesh Jain, Rohit Yadav, Sagar Kotian +1Autonomous Research AgentsAutonomous Experimentation

    Yale · Google Cloud · Stanford +5

  25. BioProAgent: Neuro-Symbolic Grounding for Constrained Scientific Planning

    Mar 1, 2026Yuyang Liu, Jingya Wang, Liuzhenghao Lv +1Autonomous ExperimentationNeuro-Symbolic Planning

    School of AI for Science, Peking University · School of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Peking University · School of Computer Science, Peking University

  26. A Robotic Testing Platform for Pipelined Discovery of Resilient Soft Actuators

    Feb 24, 2026Ang Li, Alexander Yin, Alexander White +6Soft RoboticsAutonomous Experimentation

    Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G8 Canada · Institute of Materials Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269 U.S.A. · School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269 U.S.A. +2

  27. Toward a Fully Autonomous, AI-Native Particle Accelerator

    Feb 19, 2026Chris TennantAI ControlAutonomous Experimentation

    Jefferson Laboratory 12000 Jefferson Ave Newport News, VA 23606

  28. Agentic Artificial Intelligence for Multistage Physics Experiments at a Large-Scale User Facility Particle Accelerator

    Sep 21, 2025Thorsten Hellert, Drew Bertwistle, Simon C. Leemann +2AI for ScienceAgentic Workflows

    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA