Autonomous Labs Deterministic: Bayesian optimization and campaign planning R&D teams discovering formulations or materials under a tight experiment budget
Discover a good formulation with the fewest experiments — let active learning propose the most informative next runs and a campaign planner keep the search on budget.When it applies: the design space is large, each experiment is costly, and a fixed DOE would waste most of the budget.

Scenario

When each experiment is expensive and the design space is large, a fixed DOE spends most of the budget in uninformative regions. Active learning instead proposes the most informative next experiments, guided by a campaign planner that respects constraints and budget — finding good candidates fast.

Worked example. A coating formulation must hit a hardness target across resin, filler, and additive levels within 20 experiments.

Agent workflow

  1. Experiment campaign planner — define variables, constraints, objectives, and budget.
  2. Active-learning loop — fit a surrogate and rank candidate experiments by expected information gain / acquisition value.
  3. Iterate: propose, (the lab runs), fold results back, repeat until the objective or budget is met.

Demo output

A ranked set of proposed experiments each round and a convergence trace toward the target within budget. The magic moment: a strong candidate emerges after a handful of runs, long before a full DOE would have finished.

Deterministic vs LLM

  • Deterministic — the Bayesian optimization and campaign planning.
  • LLM — the discovery-strategy narrative.

Every proposal is a validated calculation. The agent reads and routes; the engine decides.

Limits

Screening-level discovery, dependent on the quality of the measured feedback. It guides the search; the lab confirms the winner.