Optimizing experiments in a smart laboratory: Coupling High-Rep-Rate Lasers with Cognitive Simulation

Coupling cognitive simulation workflows with experimental facilities lights the way to a new class of smart laboratory. Creating data driven control models that integrate simulated and laboratory results promises to enable new methods for computational steering of experimental campaigns. In this talk we will outline how this vision is being applied to a high-repetition-rate laser facility and planned for an additive manufacturing laboratory. As high-intensity short-pulse lasers that can operate at high-repetition-rate (HRR) (>10 Hz) come online around the world, the high-energy-density (HED) science they enable will experience a radical paradigm shift. The >1000 increase in shot rate over today’s shot-per-hour drivers translates into dramatically faster data acquisition and more experiments, and thus the opportunity for a fundamental shift in how they are operated. Current energetic driver facilities depend on the ability to manually tune the lasers, the targets, the diagnostics settings, and more, between single shots or sets of shots through a manual feedback loop of data collection, data analysis, and optimization largely driven by experience and intuition. At 10 Hz, this paradigm is no longer sustainable as more complex data is collected more quickly than is possible to analyze manually. Simultaneously, on-the-fly optimization of experiments will become ever more crucial as higher repetition rates will lead to more deliberate inter-shot variations and the improved operational range to allow exploration over larger regions of phase space. We will present the vision and ongoing work to realize a framework for rapidly delivered optimal experiments coupled to cognitive simulation to provide new insights in the design and operation of smart laboratories.