Constructing a robot takes time, technical skill, the proper materials — and sometimes, somewhat fungus.
In making a pair of latest robots, Cornell University researchers cultivated an unlikely component, one found on the forest floor: fungal mycelia. By harnessing mycelia’s innate electrical signals, the researchers discovered a brand new way of controlling “biohybrid” robots that may potentially react to their environment higher than their purely synthetic counterparts.
The team’s paper published in Science Robotics. The lead writer is Anand Mishra, a research associate within the Organic Robotics Lab led by Rob Shepherd, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University, and the paper’s senior writer.
“This paper is the primary of many that can use the fungal kingdom to supply environmental sensing and command signals to robots to enhance their levels of autonomy,” Shepherd said. “By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were capable of allow the biohybrid machine to sense and reply to the environment. On this case we used light because the input, but in the long run it can be chemical. The potential for future robots could possibly be to sense soil chemistry in row crops and choose when so as to add more fertilizer, for instance, perhaps mitigating downstream effects of agriculture like harmful algal blooms.”
Mycelia are the underground vegetative a part of mushrooms. They’ve the power to sense chemical and biological signals and reply to multiple inputs.
“Living systems respond to the touch, they reply to light, they reply to heat, they reply to even some unknowns, like signals,” Mishra said. “In the event you wanted to construct future robots, how can they work in an unexpected environment? We will leverage these living systems, and any unknown input is available in, the robot will reply to that.”
Two biohybrid robots were built: a soft robot shaped like a spider and a wheeled bot.
The robots accomplished three experiments. In the primary, the robots walked and rolled, respectively, as a response to the natural continuous spikes within the mycelia’s signal. Then the researchers stimulated the robots with ultraviolet light, which caused them to alter their gaits, demonstrating mycelia’s ability to react to their environment. Within the third scenario, the researchers were capable of override the mycelia’s native signal entirely.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) CROPPS Science and Technology Center; the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture; and the NSF Signal in Soil program.
