Science Simplified: What Is Autonomous Discovery? [Video]

What Is Autonomous Discovery?

Have you ever pulled an ​“all-nighter” trying to finish a big project or homework assignment? By dawn, your brain was probably fried. But robots don’t get tired. Artificial intelligence doesn’t need coffee. They can keep working on a problem 24/7.

That’s why researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are pioneering the next generation of scientific experimentation. It’s called autonomous discovery, and it harnesses the power of robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) to solve big problems in climate, human health, and energy faster than ever before. No robot coffee required.

In this part of our series, computer scientist Casey Stone and Division Director for the Center for Argonne National Laboratory’s Nanoscale Materials Ilke Arslan provide an inside look into autonomous discovery. Autonomous discovery is a process that harnesses the power of robotics, artificial intelligence, and