Periodic Reporting for period 4 - GrowBot (Towards a new generation of plant-inspired growing artefacts)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-07-01 bis 2023-06-30
The GrowBot project proposes a disruptive new paradigm in robotics, inspired by the movement abilities of climbing plants. By imitating the features of these plants, GrowBot aims to develop low-mass and low-volume robots capable of anchoring themselves, navigating voids, and moving effectively in scenarios where current climbing robots, based on wheels, legs, or rails, would get stuck or fall. The main goal of the GrowBot project is to implement climbing plant principles in the design of growing robots. This project has three primary objectives:
1. Scientific Objective: Conduct a comprehensive biological investigation of climbing plants and their roles in influencing relationships and interactions with the environment. Additionally, develop scientific robotic platforms for studying natural models.
2. Technological Objective: Translate biological principles into adaptable robots that use multifunctional soft materials, new plant-inspired sensory-motor architectures, anchoring structures, attachment solutions, and bio-hybrid systems for energy harvesting from plants. These self-creating robots also mimic the plant's ability to respond to stimuli, displaying complex behaviors without a centralized brain.
3. Community Building: Engage in activities to establish and strengthen an interdisciplinary ecosystem focused on technologies inspired by plant principles. This ecosystem will operate within, outside, and beyond the scope of GrowBot.
The impact of GrowBot on society is twofold: it enhances our understanding of climbing plants' biology and fosters the development of innovative technologies. From an applied perspective, GrowBots can offer innovative solutions for precision agriculture, biomedical applications, and exploration in unstructured environments.
1. Scientific Objective: Conduct a comprehensive biological investigation of climbing plants and their roles in influencing relationships and interactions with the environment. Additionally, develop scientific robotic platforms for studying natural models.
2. Technological Objective: Translate biological principles into adaptable robots that use multifunctional soft materials, new plant-inspired sensory-motor architectures, anchoring structures, attachment solutions, and bio-hybrid systems for energy harvesting from plants. These self-creating robots also mimic the plant's ability to respond to stimuli, displaying complex behaviors without a centralized brain.
3. Community Building: Engage in activities to establish and strengthen an interdisciplinary ecosystem focused on technologies inspired by plant principles. This ecosystem will operate within, outside, and beyond the scope of GrowBot.
The impact of GrowBot on society is twofold: it enhances our understanding of climbing plants' biology and fosters the development of innovative technologies. From an applied perspective, GrowBots can offer innovative solutions for precision agriculture, biomedical applications, and exploration in unstructured environments.
During the first two years of the project, research activities focused on an in-depth investigation of climbing plants, including their anatomy, morphology, biomechanics, growth, movement, and behaviour. Concurrently, the consortium partners engaged in continuous collaboration across various fields of expertise to design and develop materials, actuators, anchoring systems, and growth solutions based on biological insights.
The third year emphasized the integration phase of different components into the GrowBots robotic platforms. All partners contributed to this integration phase using an interdisciplinary approach, resulting in mutual benefits for biology and engineering. Two robotic platforms were developed, incorporating mechanisms, materials, and control systems inspired by climbing plants, with potential applications in exploratory operations. A third platform focused on energy harvesting, incorporating plant-inspired triboelectric-based systems with micro-biofuel cells. This platform offers a novel energy harvesting system that can power artificial devices, such as humidity and temperature sensors or LEDs.
Additionally, technological prototypes implementing specific abilities of climbing plants, such as adhesion and coiling, were developed as stand-alone technologies. In the third and fourth years, the project entered the experimental validation phase. For biological validation, a list of potential functionalities was prepared, and specific comparative experiments were selected to test new functionalities inspired by climbing plant models in technical artifacts. For application-oriented validation, GrowBots were tested in simulated laboratory scenarios to verify their capabilities for movement and exploration in highly unstructured environments, performing various tasks.
Five application scenarios were formulated, and a total of eight technologies developed during the project were validated for these selected applications. Specifically, GrowBots target the following areas:
- Precision agriculture, utilizing micro-hooked functional surfaces and green energy harvesting technologies.
- Predictive modeling for biology, incorporating models developed for plant growth dynamics.
- Robotics for biology, where several technologies are applicable, with a focus on additive manufacturing-based growing robots.
- Biomedical applications, using tendril-inspired shape-memory fibers.
- Operations in unstructured environments, where multiple technologies can be applied, with a particular emphasis on searcher-like soft robots.
Since the inception of the project, the consortium has been dedicated to promoting the GrowBot vision within related scientific communities. Scientific events, including workshops, special sessions, and science cafés, as well as editorial initiatives, have been periodically organized across the fields of biology, material science, robotics, and geomechanics.
The third year emphasized the integration phase of different components into the GrowBots robotic platforms. All partners contributed to this integration phase using an interdisciplinary approach, resulting in mutual benefits for biology and engineering. Two robotic platforms were developed, incorporating mechanisms, materials, and control systems inspired by climbing plants, with potential applications in exploratory operations. A third platform focused on energy harvesting, incorporating plant-inspired triboelectric-based systems with micro-biofuel cells. This platform offers a novel energy harvesting system that can power artificial devices, such as humidity and temperature sensors or LEDs.
Additionally, technological prototypes implementing specific abilities of climbing plants, such as adhesion and coiling, were developed as stand-alone technologies. In the third and fourth years, the project entered the experimental validation phase. For biological validation, a list of potential functionalities was prepared, and specific comparative experiments were selected to test new functionalities inspired by climbing plant models in technical artifacts. For application-oriented validation, GrowBots were tested in simulated laboratory scenarios to verify their capabilities for movement and exploration in highly unstructured environments, performing various tasks.
Five application scenarios were formulated, and a total of eight technologies developed during the project were validated for these selected applications. Specifically, GrowBots target the following areas:
- Precision agriculture, utilizing micro-hooked functional surfaces and green energy harvesting technologies.
- Predictive modeling for biology, incorporating models developed for plant growth dynamics.
- Robotics for biology, where several technologies are applicable, with a focus on additive manufacturing-based growing robots.
- Biomedical applications, using tendril-inspired shape-memory fibers.
- Operations in unstructured environments, where multiple technologies can be applied, with a particular emphasis on searcher-like soft robots.
Since the inception of the project, the consortium has been dedicated to promoting the GrowBot vision within related scientific communities. Scientific events, including workshops, special sessions, and science cafés, as well as editorial initiatives, have been periodically organized across the fields of biology, material science, robotics, and geomechanics.
From both scientific and technological perspectives, GrowBot's impact extends to pushing the boundaries of bioinspired soft robotics and advancing our knowledge of climbing plants. The GrowBot project contributes to a deeper understanding of the fundamental features of climbing plants, creating a bridge back to the field of biology.
Furthermore, GrowBot plays a pivotal role in solidifying European leadership in plant-inspired robotics technologies, generating a substantial array of new technologies, including:
1. Novel soft robotic components for integration with or substitution of rigid body parts.
2. Artificial multifunctional materials capable of sensing and performing actions with limited or no external energy support.
3. Expertise and methodologies for new manufacturing processes to be fully leveraged in robot designs.
4. Innovative bioinspired behavioral strategies, such as circumnutations, employed by vines to locate support and anchor their structures.
5. Ingenious artificial attachment solutions inspired by climbing plants.
6. Effective designs for soft, adaptable robots.
7. Cutting-edge bio-hybrid solutions for energy production.
Furthermore, GrowBot plays a pivotal role in solidifying European leadership in plant-inspired robotics technologies, generating a substantial array of new technologies, including:
1. Novel soft robotic components for integration with or substitution of rigid body parts.
2. Artificial multifunctional materials capable of sensing and performing actions with limited or no external energy support.
3. Expertise and methodologies for new manufacturing processes to be fully leveraged in robot designs.
4. Innovative bioinspired behavioral strategies, such as circumnutations, employed by vines to locate support and anchor their structures.
5. Ingenious artificial attachment solutions inspired by climbing plants.
6. Effective designs for soft, adaptable robots.
7. Cutting-edge bio-hybrid solutions for energy production.