Plant root strategies for robotic soil penetration

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. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.