Daniel Gosdon

Email: daniel.gosden@bristol.ac.uk

Supervisors: Jonathan Rossiter and Matthew Studley

PhD Project Title: Robots in the rhizosphere: Artificial roots which branch and grow

Research Group: Soft Robotics

Biography

Primary aim:

To move towards developing growing, environmentally-actuated robotic roots which can be used for sub-soil exploration and plant-robot sensing.

 Research project:

Plant roots are adapted well for a range of difficult underground tasks - they anchor themselves to the ground, then seek out and extract the nutrients and water the plant needs to survive. Through root exudates, or mediated by mycorrhizal fungi, they can even act as points of communication between different plants. Taking a leaf from their book, and inspired by previous work in the Plantoid project[1], my research project looks at how we can emulate some of the properties of roots using soft robotics.

In order to achieve this, I have also been looking at hydrogels as a means to achieve environmental actuation - that is, removing some of the need for external power by harnessing energy from the robot's surroundings.

 About me:

I am a fourth-year FARSCOPE PhD student supervised by Prof. Jonathan Rossiter and Dr. Matthew Studley. I am particularly interested in how robotics can be applied to horticultural or small-scale agricultural settings.

References:

[1] A. Sadeghi, A. Mondini, E. Del Dottore, V. Mattoli, L. Beccai, S. Taccola, C. Lucarotti, M. Totaro, and B. Mazzolai. "A plant-inspired robot with soft differential bending capabilities". Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. Vol. 12. No. 1. December 2016.