It’s not Day of the Triffids—but a team at the MIT Media Lab has just created a plant that can move around by itself to find a better light source.
The plant-robot hybrid, called Elowan, is a potted plant on wheels. Its leaves are connected to wire sensors that can detect the tiny bioelectrical signals triggered by the presence of light. These signals are then amplified and transmitted to the robotic wheels on its planter—which autonomously move closer to the light source.
“Usually, we create artificial electronics to do such functions for us, but plants inherently have such capabilities,” said Harpreet Sareen, an assistant professor at MIT’s School of Design and an affiliate researcher at the MIT Media Lab. “They can sense and they can display–they are already an interface.”
As a result, Elowan acts like a sensor that uses its own internal electrical signals rather than an artificial device to detect light. The plant-robot demonstrates that engineers can use signals that already exist in the natural world to create a new kind of organic interface.
Sareen proposes using the sensing abilities of plants rather than conventional hardware to create user interfaces. Plants are active signal networks that can power and regenerate themselves—unlike hardware, which requires external power and can break down.
“Elowan was designed to convey … deep integration of technology with nature,” said Sareen. “This leads to applications such as sensing a surrounding environment through a plant or tree signals, or routing those signals through interactive devices.”
Elowan’s organic and robotic components operate in symbiosis—and autonomous movement is only the beginning. The cooperation between organic and robotic elements could be extended further to provide nutrition, guide growth, and develop defense mechanisms.
Light-sensing hybrids like Elowan could be used as sensor platforms to detect small changes in the environment, monitor crops—and create what Sareen envisions as a new twist on the Internet of Things.
This kind of biological-technological hybrid could also help address greenhouse gas emissions. Technology could be used to enhance the ability of plants to absorb energy, making them more efficient at absorbing carbon dioxide—mitigating climate change with bioelectronic components.
Sareen admits that those are long-term possibilities for cyborg plants, but that doesn’t stop him from being optimistic about their potential. “As a designer, I work with science and technology to bring out the possibilities for humans and nature,” he remarked. “Space-age far-future is where I thrive because it's so exciting—carrying a flashlight in the dark but not knowing where to point it at.”
Read more about bio-inspired technology at Could a Shrimp Improve the Vision of Self-Driving Cars?