A scripted control system for autonomous hardware timed experiments

TL;DR

The paper introduces labscript, an open-source Python-based control system for automating and analyzing shot-based hardware experiments with real-time synchronization and graphical parameter manipulation.

Contribution

It provides a flexible, open-source framework that integrates experiment control, data acquisition, and analysis, enabling automated exploration and optimization of experimental parameters.

Findings

Supports real-time hardware synchronization

Enables automated parameter space exploration

Facilitates closed-loop optimization

Abstract

We present the labscript suite, an open-source experiment control system for automating shot-based experiments and their analysis. Experiments are composed as Python code, which is used to produce low-level hardware instructions. They are queued up and executed on the hardware in real time, synchronized by a pseudoclock. Experiment parameters are manipulated graphically, and analysis routines are run as new data is acquired. With this system, we can easily automate exploration of parameter spaces, including closed-loop optimization.