Laboratory Automation

Laboratories in chemistry, biochemistry, and materials science are at the leading edge of technology, discovering molecules and materials to unlock capabilities in energy, catalysis, biotechnology, sustainability, electronics, and more. Yet, most modern laboratories resemble factories from generations past, with a large reliance on humans manually performing synthesis and characterization tasks. Robotics and automation can enable scientific experiments to be conducted faster, more safely, more accurately, and with greater reproducibility, allowing scientists to tackle large societal problems in domains such as health and energy on a shorter timescale. We are developing robots and software frameworks to transform science labs into automated factories of discovery that accelerate scientific progress.

Publications/Presentations

1. Angelos Angelopoulos, James F. Cahoon, and Ron Alterovitz, “Transforming science labs into automated factories of discovery,” Science Robotics, vol. 9, no. 95, pp. eadm6991, Oct. 2024. (Publisher) (Download PDF from Publisher)
2. Angelos Angelopoulos, Matthew Verber, Collin Mckinney, James Cahoon, and Ron Alterovitz, “High-Accuracy Injection Using a Mobile Manipulation Robot for Chemistry Lab Automation,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Oct. 2023. (Download PDF)