NIMO: A Software Platform for Closed-Loop Materials Exploration with Diverse AI Algorithms

Abstract

Self-driving laboratories (SDLs), where artificial intelligence proposes subsequent experiments and robotic systems execute them, are rapidly becoming the vanguard of materials discovery. A critical bottleneck, however, lies in seamlessly bridging diverse AI algorithms tailored for specific exploration goals with the heterogeneous robotic hardware found across different laboratories. Here, we present NIMO, an open-source software platform designed to dissolve this barrier through three core paradigms: a modular AI-robot decoupling mediated via simple CSV file exchange, a discrete candidate-pool architecture that seamlessly absorbs domain knowledge, and a unified Python interface pre-loaded with twelve distinct AI algorithms. In this Perspective, we review the operational principles of each algorithm alongside six diverse SDL implementations driven by NIMO, covering electrolyte discovery, organic synthesis, thin-film exploration, fuel-cell process informatics, coffee-ring phase exploration, and legacy liquid-handling automation. One of these also demonstrates NIMO's seamless interoperability with the IvoryOS orchestration framework. To democratize autonomous science, we also introduce a no-code desktop application that enables intuitive, human-in-the-loop exploration for non-programmers. NIMO is freely available at https://github.com/NIMS-DA/nimo, offering a versatile, plug-and-play foundation to accelerate autonomous materials exploration across diverse experimental landscapes.