Abstract
Mixing societies of natural and artificial systems can provide interesting and potentially fruitful research targets. Here we mix robotic setups and natural plants in order to steer the motion behavior of plants while growing. The robotic setup uses a camera to observe the plant and uses a pair of light sources to trigger phototropic response, steering the plant to user-defined targets. An evolutionary robotic approach is used to design a controller for the setup. Initially, preliminary experiments are performed with a simple predetermined controller and a growing bean plant. The plant behavior in response to the simple controller is captured by image processing, and a model of the plant tip dynamics is developed. The model is used in simulation to evolve a robot controller that steers the plant tip such that it follows a number of randomly generated target points. Finally, we test the simulation-evolved controller in the real setup controlling a natural bean plant. The results demonstrate a successful crossing of the reality gap in the setup. The success of the approach allows for future extensions to more complex tasks including control of the shape of plants and pattern formation in multiple plant setups. 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 15 |
| Journal | ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Number of pages | 24 |
| ISSN | 1556-4665 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 01.09.2017 |
Funding
Project “flora robotica” has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the FET grant agreement, no. 640959. Authors’ addresses: D. N. Hofstadler, P. Zahadat, and T. Schmickl, Artificial Life Lab, Department of Zoology, University of Graz, Universitätsplatz 2, A-8010 Graz, Austria; emails: {daniel.hofstadler, payam6.zahadat, thomas.schmickl}@uni-graz.at; M. Wahby and H. Hamann, Institute of Computer Engineering, University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23562 Lübeck, Germany; emails: {wahby,hamann}@iti.uni-luebeck.de; M. K. Heinrich and P. Ayres, Centre for IT and Architecture, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Philip de Langes Allé 10, 1435 København K, Denmark; emails: {mhei,phil.ayres}@kadk.dk. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM 1556-4665/2017/09-ART15 $15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3124643 Project ‘flora robotica’ has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the FET grant agreement, no. 640959.
