Autonomous Droplet Navigation via Model-Based Reinforcement Learning: Zero-Shot Transfer and Emergent Dynamics

What happened

arXiv:2610.08852v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Self-driving laboratories (SDLs) are transforming chemical and materials discovery through closed-loop automation, yet automated infrastructure for physical manipulation of soft, deformable matter remains beyond current robotic platforms. A critical instance is autonomous droplet transport on an open surface, where contact-angle hysteresis, capillary pinning, and surface heterogeneity produce partially observable dynamics that pose significant challenges for classical model-based controllers.

A two-axis tilting board coated with a thin silicone oil film drives the droplet, while an overhead camera provides real-time feedback. A learned policy was trained on just 50 to 150 physical episodes depending on geometric complexity, without simulation or analytical models. These results extend reinforcement-learning manipulation from rigid microrobots to deformable soft-matter systems for next-generation SDLs.