IEEE Xplore Basic Search

Search for academic papers on IEEE Xplore using Chrome DevTools MCP.

Important: Determine the IEEE Xplore base URL

Before the first operation, check the current browser page URL to determine which IEEE Xplore domain the user is accessing. Store it as BASE_URL. Common patterns:

• Direct access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org
• Institutional proxy: URL containing ieeexplore in the hostname (e.g. WebVPN or EZProxy)

Use whatever origin the user's browser is currently on. If no IEEE Xplore page is open, ask the user which URL to use.

Steps

Step 1: Navigate to search results

Use navigate_page to go to:

{BASE_URL}/search/searchresult.jsp?queryText={QUERY}&highlight=true&returnFacets=ALL&returnType=SEARCH&matchPubs=true&rowsPerPage=25&pageNumber=1

Where {QUERY} is the URL-encoded search keywords from $ARGUMENTS.

Important: Always include initScript to prevent bot detection:

initScript: "Object.defineProperty(navigator, 'webdriver', {get: () => undefined})"

Step 2: Check access

After navigation, verify the page loaded correctly:

• If the page shows a captcha or bot detection challenge: tell the user "请在浏览器中完成验证后告知我。" Wait for confirmation.
• If the URL no longer contains ieeexplore, the user may have been redirected to a login page. Tell the user: "页面被重定向，请在浏览器中完成登录或认证后告知我。" Then wait.
• Otherwise, proceed.

Step 3: Extract search results

Use evaluate_script with built-in waiting. Do NOT use wait_for — it returns the full page snapshot which can exceed token limits.

async () => {
  // Wait for results to load (up to 15s)
  for (let i = 0; i < 30; i++) {
    if (document.querySelectorAll('.List-results-items .result-item').length > 0 ||
        document.querySelector('.Dashboard-header span')) break;
    await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 500));
  }

  const items = document.querySelectorAll('.List-results-items .result-item');
  const papers = [];

  for (let i = 0; i < items.length; i++) {
    const item = items[i];
    const titleLink = item.querySelector('h3 a[href*="/document/"]');
    const authors = [...item.querySelectorAll('.author a[href*="/author/"]')].map(a => a.textContent.trim());
    const pubLink = item.querySelector('.description a[href*="/xpl/"]');
    const publisherInfo = item.querySelector('.publisher-info-container');
    const infoText = publisherInfo?.textContent?.trim() || '';
    const yearMatch = infoText.match(/Year:\s*(\d{4})/);
    const docNumber = titleLink?.href?.match(/\/document\/(\d+)/)?.[1] || '';
    const abstractSnippet = item.querySelector('.js-displayer-content span')?.textContent?.trim() || '';
    // Cited by: extract from full text content using regex (DOM selector varies across pages)
    const itemText = item.textContent || '';
    // Two formats: "Cited by: 70" (default sort) and "Cited by: Papers (190)" (citation sort)
    const citedByMatch = itemText.match(/Cited by:.*?(\d+)/);
    const citedBy = citedByMatch ? citedByMatch[1] : '';

    papers.push({
      rank: i + 1,
      title: titleLink?.textContent?.trim()?.replace(/<[^>]+>/g, '') || '',
      arnumber: docNumber,
      authors,
      publication: pubLink?.textContent?.trim() || '',
      year: yearMatch ? yearMatch[1] : '',
      info: infoText,
      citedBy,
      abstract: abstractSnippet.substring(0, 200),
    });
  }

  const resultCount = document.querySelector('.Dashboard-header span')?.textContent?.trim() || '';
  const noResults = resultCount.includes('No results') || items.length === 0;
  return { papers, resultCount, noResults };
}

Step 4: Handle no results

If noResults is true:

1. Tell the user no results were found on IEEE Xplore.
2. Suggest broadening the search (use fewer keywords, remove quotes, try synonyms).
3. Important: IEEE Xplore does NOT host IEC, ISO, or CENELEC standard documents directly. If the user searched for an IEC/ISO standard number (e.g. "IEC 60358-2"), explain:
   • IEC standards must be obtained from the IEC Webstore (webstore.iec.ch) or national standardization bodies.
   • Suggest searching IEEE Xplore for the technical topic instead (e.g. "coupling capacitor power line carrier" instead of "IEC 60358").
   • Suggest searching IEEE SA (standards.ieee.org) for the corresponding IEEE/ANSI standard using ieee-standards-search.
   • Offer to search for papers that reference the IEC standard.

Step 5: Present results

Format results as a numbered list:

{resultCount}

1. {title}
   Authors: {authors}
   Publication: {publication} | {year}
   Info: {info}
   Cited by: {citedBy} | Article #: {arnumber}

2. ...

Key CSS Selectors

Element	Selector
Result items	.List-results-items .result-item
Title link	h3 a[href*="/document/"]
Authors	.author a[href*="/author/"]
Publication link	.description a[href*="/xpl/"]
Publisher info	.publisher-info-container
Abstract snippet	.js-displayer-content span
Cited by	Regex Cited by:\s*(\d+) on item text (DOM selector unreliable)
Result count	.Dashboard-header span
Checkbox	input[type="checkbox"][aria-label="Select search result"]

URL Parameters

Param	Description	Example
queryText	Query string	deep learning
rowsPerPage	Results per page	25, 50, 75, 100
pageNumber	Page number (1-based)	1, 2, 3
sortType	Sort order	newest, oldest, paper-citations, patent-citations, most-popular
highlight	Highlight matches	true
returnFacets	Return facets	ALL
returnType	Return type	SEARCH
matchPubs	Match publications	true

Search Strategy (Learned from Testing)

Quoting matters: IEEE Xplore treats unquoted words as individual tokens joined by OR. Always quote multi-word phrases.

Query	Results	Quality
coupling capacitor power line carrier	~12,000+	Terrible — each word matches independently
"coupling capacitor" "power line carrier"	4	Excellent — exact phrases, both required
"coupling capacitor" OR "capacitor divider"	Moderate	OK — OR between synonyms of same concept
"coupling capacitor" OR "power line carrier"	~12,000+	Bad — OR between different concepts

Rules:

1. Always quote multi-word phrases with double quotes
2. Use AND (implicit) between different concepts — just put quoted phrases next to each other
3. Use OR only between synonyms of the same concept (e.g. "drain coil" OR "line trap")
4. Add a domain anchor like "HVDC" or "high voltage" to prevent cross-domain noise
5. If results > 500, the query is too broad — add more AND terms
6. If results = 0, the query is too narrow — remove one quoted phrase or try synonyms
7. For multi-topic searches, use ieee-advanced-search with matchBoolean=true for full boolean control

Notes

• Results include article numbers (arnumber) needed for detail extraction, PDF download, and citation export.
• This skill performs at most 2 tool calls: navigate_page + evaluate_script.
• IEEE Xplore uses Angular and loads content dynamically; the wait loop in evaluate_script handles this.
• IEEE Xplore does NOT host IEC/ISO/CENELEC standards. For IEC standards, direct users to IEC Webstore. For corresponding IEEE/ANSI standards, use ieee-standards-search.
• The citedBy field is extracted via regex from the item's text content, not a specific DOM element, because IEEE Xplore's cited-by markup varies.