Abstract
Soil penetration strategies of plant roots can represent an interesting source of inspiration for designing explorer robots. In this work we present a selection of these strategies whose performances were discussed and evaluated by means of engineering mock-ups and dedicated experiments in granular substrates. The obtained results demonstrated that root elongation from the tip reduces the forces needed for soil penetration up to 50%; tip morphology and anchorage resulted to strongly influence penetration performances.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bengough, A.G., Croser, C., Pritchard, J.: A biophysical analysis of root growth under mechanical stress. Plant and Soil 189, 155–164 (1997)
Tonazzini, A., Popova, L., Mattioli, F., Mazzolai, B.: Analysis and Characterization of a Robotic Probe Inspired by the Plant Root Apex. In: Biorob, Roma (2012)
Sadeghi, A., Tonazzini, A., Popova, L., Mazzolai, B.: Innovative Robotic Mechanism for Soil Penetration Inspired by Plant Roots. In: ICRA, Karlsruhe (2013)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Tonazzini, A., Sadeghi, A., Popova, L., Mazzolai, B. (2013). Plant Root Strategies for Robotic Soil Penetration. In: Lepora, N.F., Mura, A., Krapp, H.G., Verschure, P.F.M.J., Prescott, T.J. (eds) Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. Living Machines 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8064. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39802-5_62
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39802-5_62
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-39801-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-39802-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)