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SUMMARY:Nature unveils its secrets in bioinspired robotics and smart mater
 ials
DTSTART:20140324T140000
DTSTAMP:20260916T043450Z
UID:e6e7ebf139942d67751f865a8e46df2cde78bf091df4438f389615f4
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Barbara Mazzolai\, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia\nNature
  has spent 3\,8 billion years on “R&D” projects and offers many soluti
 ons that humans can use as inspiration to develop materials\, devices\, be
 havioral controls\, or computing that aim to improve their quality of life
 . Among living organisms\, plants represent valuable biological models to 
 illustrate physical principles or develop mechanical devices. The role of 
 plants in our ecosystems is well understood. Plants are crucial for our su
 rvival because they produce oxygen\, and plants are located at the lowest 
 level in the food chain\, and thus they are fundamental in the life cycle 
 and ecosystems. Plants are often considered to be passive organisms that a
 re unable to move\, communicate\, and escape from hostile environments. In
  recent years\, engineers\, and material and computer scientists have show
 n an increased interest in plants.\nThere are many examples of technologic
 al solutions that were inspired by plants. I will give a brief overview of
  some attempts to translate various plant features into artificial solutio
 ns\, including plant root-like robotic devices\, actuators\, and materials
 . A consequence of the static lifestyle of plants is the well-organized se
 nsing system\, which allows them to explore efficiently the environment an
 d to react rapidly to potential dangerous circumstances. Below ground\, ea
 ch single root has to move through the substrate\, orienting along the gra
 vity vector\, negotiating obstacles\, and locating resources. An entirely 
 new generation of robotics and ICT hardware and software technologies can 
 be designed\, developed and validated basing robotic research on such orig
 inal cues. New concepts of artefacts inspired from plant roots\, called PL
 ANTOIDS and endowed with distributed sensing\, actuation\, and intelligenc
 e for environmental exploration\, rescue and medical tasks will be present
 ed.\nBio: Barbara Mazzolai is Coordinator of the Center for Micro-BioRobot
 ics (CMBR) of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)\, in Pontedera (Pi
 sa)\, Italy and Deputy Director for the Supervision and Organization of th
 e IIT Centers Network since July\, 2012. She received her MSc in Biology a
 t the University of Pisa (Italy) in 1995 and her Ph.D. in Microsystems Eng
 ineering at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. She was co-founder of the 
 Research Centre on Sea Technologies and Marine Robotics of SSSA in Livorno
 . From November 2009 to February 2011 she was Team Leader at the CMBR. In 
 2013 she was awarded the Medal of the Senate of the Italian Republic for h
 er scientific activities in biomimetics and biorobotics.
LOCATION:DIA 003  http://plan.epfl.ch/?room=DIA003
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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