The science of plant robotics

It is nothing new to hear that plants, trees and flowers are important to our environment. With environmental problems such as degradation of areas, felled forests and pollution, many of nature’s species will become increasingly rare and may even disappear altogether, becoming extinct.

Scientists are becoming more and more innovative with sustainable projects. The search for alternative fuels, to reduce pollutants in the atmosphere, is stimulating many scientific studies.

For example, biofuels are natural resources obtained from biomass, the name given to the organic matter in an ecosystem, such as vegetable. Ie, plants can be considered as renewable energy sources. Plants, through photosynthesis, transform solar energy receiving biomass.

There are several types of biofuels that can be produced from biomass, and sources for such production may be vegetable (for example, vegetable oils and sugarcane). But that’s just the start of the research in a technological revolution by means of the plant.

Early last year Italian researchers looked towards artificial intelligence in an attempt to develop a robot plant, called plantóides. The plantoide was developed in plastic, with 3D printer. At the tail end of these “plants robots’ sensors are installed for research soil. This is could revolutionise the study of soil and subsoil and open new possibilities for exploration of the environment and the flora behaviour.

The intention is to use the plantóide for decontamination of land, exploitation ores, search for water and study of communication between plants. It is not a simple project, it takes time and it is necessary to have a lot of people involved.

Funded by the European Union, it involves the University of Florence studies in Italy, the Bioengineering Institute of Barcelona, ​​Spain, and the Federal Polytechnic of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Sweden, Linköping University, a project that took two decades, created the first sort of “rose robot”. In this project, the “rose robot” promises to show and collect data on environmental changes, in addition to controlling the production of plants through panels or even assist in electricity production from sugars produced by photosynthesis.

Because of the characteristics of plants to transport the stem and the branches sap, the injected synthetic polymer ends up being dissiminado throughout the plant. It’s an incredible and revolutionary project. For long now the human beings have tried to use various alternatives of energy in order to turn the planet into a better place.

The evolution of technology allows us to perform old ideas. As the years pass there will always be new projects with the intention of improving our quality of life whilst saving the green of this earth.