ABSTRACT
Autonomous experimentation is a young field of research and it would be premature to define it in one narrow way or another. A single, correct definition might not exist since the term itself has different meanings in different communities. This was the main reason to offer the reader three separate introductions to autonomous experimentation instead of one, at the beginning of this book. Not only does the instrument have to be in good working order but interactions have to happen entirely electronically via electronic messages; no manual levers or knobs should be necessary for its operation. As raw data leaves the instrument, they are often comprised of high-dimensional structures—images, films, spectra—and contaminated with noise. Different communities have developed a wide variety of different workflows to accomplish this task.
