Flora Robotica

This project’s objective is to develop and investigate closely linked symbiotic relationships between robots and natural plants and to explore the potentials of a plant-robot society able to produce architectural artifacts and living spaces.

Each robotic plant connects wirelessly to the Internet. In contrast to top-down control, we explore a developmental plasticity of bio-hybrid systems, where robots and plants grow together from sprout to adult stage and form a closely co-dependent and self-organized system.

Humans, plants, and robots form an internet-connected social garden where desired structures and behaviour patterns emerge based on both local interactions and global interactions with parts of the garden growing at other locations. Hence, the social garden is a cultural system that shows long-term learning and adaptation where all past actions and interactions between the natural and artificial plants are represented in the embodiment of the garden.