NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology
05/06/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 05/07/2026 03:27
Towards a composable, modular laboratory ecosystem for autonomous materials research and development
Published
May 6, 2026
Author(s)
Howard Joress, Brian DeCost, Katelyn Jones, Aaron Kusne, Austin McDannald, Zachary Trautt, Francesca Tavazza
Abstract
Autonomous and automated experimentation have demonstrated the possibility of accelerating materials research and development by orders of magnitude. However, the investment, in both time and money, to design and build these platforms has proven to be a major roadblock in their adoption. This cost is driven by the bespoke nature of these platforms, requiring redundant engineering and the complexity of handling multiple interfaces from multiple vendors. To mitigate these challenges, we propose the development of an autonomous materials research ecosystem. This ecosystem, defined by a set of community-driven standards, allows for these platforms to be rapidly constructed from off-the-shelf modular components designed and built by multiple vendors.
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Citation
Joress, H. , DeCost, B. , Jones, K. , Kusne, A. , McDannald, A. , Trautt, Z. and Tavazza, F. (2026), Towards a composable, modular laboratory ecosystem for autonomous materials research and development, Matter, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=959979 (Accessed May 7, 2026)
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NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology published this content on May 06, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on May 07, 2026 at 09:27 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]