NIMO Controller用MCP协议统一人与AI的实验控制界面
NIMO Controller: a self-driving laboratory orchestrator based on the Model Context Protocol
- 基于MCP协议构建实验系统，所有功能通过标准化接口暴露
- 支持可视化编程和AI agent直接调用，实现人机同控
- 在配色实验中验证有效，提升实验自动化程度
自驱动实验室（SDL）正成为加速科学发现的重要工具，但其软件开发仍具技术挑战。现有编排框架多面向人类交互，缺乏适合人工智能代理的标准接口。本文提出基于模型上下文协议（MCP）的SDL软件架构，将所有功能通过MCP服务器对外暴露。在此基础上，设计了名为NIMO Controller的MCP驱动编排器，能自动通过MCP工具发现生成可视化编程界面，使用户无需编码即可设计实验流程；同一后端也可被AI代理访问，实现对人类与智能体的统一接口。通过一个配色匹配型自驱动实验室案例研究，验证了该架构的可用性与有效性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Self-driving laboratories (SDLs) have attracted increasing attention as a means of accelerating scientific discovery; however, developing SDL software remains technically demanding. To improve accessibility, orchestration software frameworks have been proposed to coordinate SDL components. Nevertheless, existing frameworks are primarily designed for human interaction and do not provide standardized interfaces suitable for AI agents. In this work, we propose an SDL software architecture based on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), in which all SDL functionalities are exposed through MCP servers. Following this design principle, we introduce an MCP-based SDL orchestrator, named NIMO Controller. It provides a visual programming interface automatically generated through MCP-based tool discovery, allowing human users to design experimental workflows without writing code. The same MCP backend can also be accessed by AI agents, providing a unified interface for both human users and AI agents. We demonstrate the proposed system through a case study on a color-matching SDL. The results validate the usability of the proposed MCP-based SDL architecture.
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