Self-driving laboratories collect ten times more data
A new way of running experiments gives automated materials laboratories at least ten times more data in the same time, while using fewer reagents. The next trials are still planned by a person.
- Today a robot works the way a person does: prepare a sample, measure, record the result, take the next one — one sample, one measurement point.
- The new way breaks with that pattern: the system under study changes continuously during the measurement and the instrument records a continuous trace.
- One experiment therefore yields a whole curve instead of a single point.
- For the same working time at least ten times more data is collected, using fewer reagents and leaving less waste.
- The limitation is named outright: most of the systems in use still need a person to plan the next trials.
- For laboratories that means more results from the same amount of material and a shorter path to an answer when developing new formulations.
Source: ScienceDaily