Research in AI-Enabled Autonomous Materials Laboratories for New Mexico’s Future Workforce

This project involves two undergraduate students in a research-oriented activity with the goal of modernizing an existing high-throughput thin film fatigue testing system into a fully autonomous experimentation system at New Mexico Tech. The students will benefit from a research visit experience at Sandia National Laboratories and the development of Python-controlled workflows that leverage application programming interfaces to enable continuous fatigue testing operations without human intervention. The integration of state-of-the-art autonomous laboratory research into an academic learning environment and its translation into a new course on AI-driven experimentation bridges the gap between education and next-generation materials research. The workflows that are developed will also have the benefit of creating a template for additional experiment automation capabilities, thus benefiting the PI’s research and the institution’s infrastructure.