An adaptive robotics framework for chemistry lab automation
Published in arXiv, 2022
Recommended citation: Yoshikawa, Naruki, Andrew Zou Li, Kourosh Darvish, Yuchi Zhao, Haoping Xu, Artur Kuramshin, Alán Aspuru-Guzik, Animesh Garg, and Florian Shkurti. “Chemistry Lab Automation via Constrained Task and Motion Planning.” arXiv https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.09672
Chemists need to perform many laborious and time-consuming experiments in the lab to discover and understand the properties of new materials. To support and accelerate this process, we propose a robot framework for manipulation that autonomously performs chemistry experiments. Our framework receives high-level abstract descriptions of chemistry experiments, perceives the lab workspace, and autonomously plans multi-step actions and motions. The robot interacts with a wide range of lab equipment and executes the generated plans. A key component of our method is constrained task and motion planning using PDDLStream solvers. Preventing collisions and spillage is done by introducing a constrained motion planner. Our planning framework can conduct different experiments employing implemented actions and lab tools. We demonstrate the utility of our framework on pouring skills for various materials and two fundamental chemical experiments for materials synthesis: solubility and recrystallization.