Controller and Method

A controller that controls an experimental device based on an experimental protocol, comprising:

• an input unit that receives an input of an experimental protocol designed in the form of a directed graph, the graph including a plurality of nodes corresponding to an experiment process;
• a generation unit that, when the plurality of nodes include a first node and a second node, generates a dependency list including first dependency information, the second node getting executable in response to completion of processing of the first node, the first dependency information indicating that start of processing of the second node depends on the completion of the processing of the first node;
• a selection unit that selects, based on the dependency list, a node from the plurality of nodes for starting processing;
• a command unit that instructs an experimental device to execute the processing of the node selected by the selection unit;
• and
• an updating unit that updates the dependency list in response to completion of any processing for one of the plurality of nodes,
• the selection unit selecting the second node in response to completion of the processing for the first node is completed.