Advancing environmental intelligence through novel approaches in soft bioinspired robotics and allied technologies: I-Seed project position paper for Environmental Intelligence in Europe

Barbara Mazzolai*, Tobias Kraus, Nicola Pirrone, Lammert Kooistra, Antonio De Simone, Antoine Cottin, Laura Margheri

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference paperAcademicpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The EU-funded FET Proactive Environmental Intelligence project "I-Seed"(Grant Agreement n. 101017940, https://www.iseedproject.eu/) targets towards the development of a radically simplified and environmentally friendly approach for environmental monitoring. Specifically, I-Seed aims at developing a new generation of self-deployable and biodegradable soft miniaturized robots, inspired by the morphology and dispersion abilities of plant seeds, able to perform low-cost, environmentally responsible, in-situ measurements. The natural functional mechanisms of seeds dispersal offer a rich source of robust, highly adaptive, mass and energy efficient mechanisms, and behavioral and morphological intelligence, which can be selected and implemented for advanced, but simple, technological inventions. I-Seed robots are conceived as unique in their movement abilities because inspired by passive mechanisms and materials of natural seeds, and unique in their environmentally friendly design because made of all biodegradable components. Sensing is based on a chemical transduction mechanism in a stimulus-responsive sensor material with fluorescence-based optical readout, which can be read via one or more drones equipped with fluorescent LiDAR technology and a software able to perform a real time georeferencing of data. The I-Seed robotic ecosystem is envisioned to be used for collecting environmental data in-situ with high spatial and temporal resolution across large remote areas where no monitoring data are available, and thus for extending current environmental sensor frameworks and data analysis systems.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationGoodIT 2022 - Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on Information Technology for Social Good
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages265-268
ISBN (Electronic)9781450392846
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 Sept 2022
Event2nd ACM Conference on Information Technology for Social Good, GoodIT 2022 - Limassol, Cyprus
Duration: 7 Sept 20229 Sept 2022

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Conference/symposium

Conference/symposium2nd ACM Conference on Information Technology for Social Good, GoodIT 2022
Country/TerritoryCyprus
CityLimassol
Period7/09/229/09/22

Keywords

  • aerial robotics
  • biodegradable technologies
  • Bioinspired robotics
  • chemical transduction sensing
  • environmental intelligence
  • LiDAR
  • multi-functional materials
  • plant biology
  • soft robotics
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Advancing environmental intelligence through novel approaches in soft bioinspired robotics and allied technologies: I-Seed project position paper for Environmental Intelligence in Europe'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this