The more we learn about fungi, the more we realize how sophisticated and unique these organisms are.
We’ve known for some time that mushrooms possess health benefits for us humans. Now scientists are beginning to tinker with the biomechanics properties of mushrooms, with surprising results.
Case in point: researchers at Cornell University have engineered two types of robots where a mushroom’s mycelium, or rootlike threads, grow directly into the hardware itself. This robot is then controlled by mycelium signals, and its sensitivity to light.
The research is just the beginning of what may be a major advancement in robotics. Harnessing the power of mycelium to create smarter, more agile, and more capable machines.
Check out the video below.
“The robots are the latest accomplishment of scientists in a field known as biohybrid robotics who seek to combine biological, living materials such as plant and animal cells or insects with synthetic components to make partly living and partly engineered entities.
Biohybrid robots have yet to venture beyond the lab, but researchers hope one day robot jellyfish may explore oceans, sperm-powered bots may be able to deliver fertility treatments and cyborg cockroaches could search for survivors in the wake of an earthquake.”
A soft-bodied robot controlled by light-sensitive fungal mycelia propels itself along a surface. Image via Anand Mishra.
“This paper is the first of many that will use the fungal kingdom to provide environmental sensing and command signals to robots to improve their levels of autonomy,” Shepherd said. “By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment. In this case we used light as the input, but in the future it will be chemical. The potential for future robots could be to sense soil chemistry in row crops and decide when to add more fertilizer, for example, perhaps mitigating downstream effects of agriculture like harmful algal blooms.”
Rob Shepherd, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in Cornell Engineering
