Heron, a Knowledge Graph editor for intuitive implementation of Python-based experimental pipelines.

Abstract

To realise a research project, experimenters face conflicting design and implementation choices across hardware and software. These include balancing ease of implementation - time, expertise, and resources - against future flexibility, the number of opaque (black box) components and reproducibility. To address this, we present Heron, a Python-based platform for constructing and running experimental and data analysis pipelines. Heron allows researchers to design experiments according to their own mental schemata, represented as a Knowledge Graph - a structure that mirrors the logical flow of an experiment. This approach speeds up implementation (and subsequent updates), while minimising black box components, increasing transparency and reproducibility. Heron supports the integration of software and hardware combinations that are otherwise too complex or costly, making it especially useful in experimental sciences with a large number of interconnected components such as robotics, neuroscience, behavioural sciences, physics, chemistry, and environmental sciences. Unlike visual-only tools, Heron combines full control (of instrument and software combinations) and flexibility with the ease of high-level programming and Graphical User Interfaces. It assumes intermediate Python proficiency and offers a clean, modular code base that encourages documentation and reuse. By removing inaccessible technical barriers, Heron enables researchers without formal engineering backgrounds to construct sophisticated, reliable and reproducible experimental setups - bridging the gap between scientific creativity and technical implementation.