TARMAC: A Taxonomy for Robot Manipulation in Chemistry

Abstract: Chemistry laboratory automation aims to increase throughput, reproducibility, and safety, yet many existing systems still depend on frequent human intervention. Advances in robotics have reduced this dependency, but without a structured representation of the required skills, autonomy remains limited to bespoke, task-specific solutions with little capacity to transfer beyond their initial design. Current experiment abstractions typically describe protocol-level steps without specifying the robotic actions needed to execute them. This highlights the lack of a systematic account of the manipulation skills required for robots in chemistry laboratories. To address this gap, we introduce TARMAC - a Taxonomy for Robot Manipulation in Chemistry - a domain-specific framework that defines and organizes the core manipulations needed in laboratory practice. Based on annotated teaching-lab demonstrations and supported by experimental validation, TARMAC categorizes actions according to their functional role and physical execution requirements. Beyond serving as a descriptive vocabulary, TARMAC can be instantiated as robot-executable primitives and composed into higher-level macros, enabling skill reuse and supporting scalable integration into long-horizon workflows. These contributions provide a structured foundation for more flexible and autonomous laboratory automation. More information is available at https://tarmac-paper.github.io/