Accelerating Discovery in Natural Science Laboratories with AI and Robotics: Perspectives and Challenges from the 2024 IEEE ICRA Workshop, Yokohama, Japan

Fundamental breakthroughs across many scientific disciplines are becoming increasingly rare (1). At the same time, challenges related to the reproducibility and scalability of experiments, especially in the natural sciences (2,3), remain significant obstacles. For years, automating scientific experiments has been viewed as the key to solving this problem. However, existing solutions are often rigid and complex, designed to address specific experimental tasks with little adaptability to protocol changes. With advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence, new possibilities are emerging to tackle this challenge in a more flexible and human-centric manner.