In an Oct. 8 announcement, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science said it had selected four national-lab-led projects to develop robotics testbeds for scientific work. The proposed setups are meant to let researchers train and test robots alongside laboratory instruments, data systems and computing, with tools designed for reuse across facilities.
A testbed is a repeatable place to connect a robot with lab equipment and measure how it performs. It may include both physical machines and digital twins, software models of the equipment and workflow. DOE expects the projects to produce reusable software and interfaces, robot skills, benchmark tasks, datasets and trained models, along with safety and provenance practices that help researchers retrace how a result was produced.
The four projects divide that work. Argonne National Laboratory’s MAESTRO aims to build modular robot systems that can learn from operating experience. Brookhaven National Laboratory’s DART will test whether robotic actions are reliable, transfer across platforms and meet scientific requirements, including by documenting failure cases. Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s TRACE aims to connect robots, instruments, data and computing through common interfaces so experiments can be repeated. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s SPIRE plans to link sample handling, detectors and instrument controls with computing at photon- and electron-science facilities.
Together, the projects span developing robotic skills, checking whether they transfer, connecting systems across labs and testing them at scientific facilities. The 2026 call asks for repeatable assessments, with measures such as reproducibility, time to result and how long a system runs between human interventions. Shared interfaces and test methods could let labs compare or adapt a workflow without rebuilding the surrounding software stack.
DOE lists $30 million in planned project funding, including $2 million for fiscal 2026; later-year funding depends on future congressional appropriations. The projects are selected for award negotiations, and DOE says that selection does not guarantee an award or funding.
Sources
- DOE’s Oct. 8 announcement of the four selections
- DOE’s Robotics and Automation Testbeds program call
- Illustrative image: Wikimedia Commons file page, public-domain NIAID video still; requested credit: “Courtesy: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.” The image does not depict a DOE-selected project.
