Owl-AuraID 1.0: An Intelligent System for Autonomous Scientific Instrumentation and Scientific Data Analysis
This addresses the need for autonomous laboratories in scientific research by providing a practical, extensible system for high-throughput characterization, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing GUI-based automation approaches.
The paper tackles the problem of automating scientific instrumentation hindered by proprietary GUIs and limited generalizability, by presenting Owl-AuraID, a GUI-native embodied agent system that operates instruments like human experts, demonstrating broad coverage across ten instrument categories and diverse workflows such as FTIR, NMR, AFM, and TGA analysis.
Scientific discovery increasingly depends on high-throughput characterization, yet automation is hindered by proprietary GUIs and the limited generalizability of existing API-based systems. We present Owl-AuraID, a software-hardware collaborative embodied agent system that adopts a GUI-native paradigm to operate instruments through the same interfaces as human experts. Its skill-centric framework integrates Type-1 (GUI operation) and Type-2 (data analysis) skills into end-to-end workflows, connecting physical sample handling with scientific interpretation. Owl-AuraID demonstrates broad coverage across ten categories of precision instruments and diverse workflows, including multimodal spectral analysis, microscopic imaging, and crystallographic analysis, supporting modalities such as FTIR, NMR, AFM, and TGA. Overall, Owl-AuraID provides a practical, extensible foundation for autonomous laboratories and illustrates a path toward evolving laboratory intelligence through reusable operational and analytical skills. The code are available at https://github.com/OpenOwlab/AuraID.