Distributed robot nodes provide sequences of blue light stimuli to steer the growth trajectories of climbing plants. By activating natural phototropism, the robots guide the plants through binary left-right decisions, growing them into predefined patterns that by contrast are not possible when the robots are dormant.
Wahby, M., Heinrich, M. K., Hofstadler, D. N., Petzold, J., Kuksin, I., Zahadat, P., Schmickl, T., Ayres, P., Hamann, H. Robotic Sensing and Stimuli Provision for Guided Plant Growth. J. Vis. Exp. (149), e59835, doi:10.3791/59835 (2019).