This paper aims to establish social interaction between humans and plants through a robotic interface in order to evoke human understanding and concern for plant behaviour and life states. We designed a robotic interaction system that integrates plant signals with environmental inputs. Touch and light serve as two distinct stimuli, each triggering a different responsive pathway in the system. The touch input activates pre-recorded electrophysiological signals from Mimosa Pudica plant, which are mapped to motor commands that drive a flower-like structure to simulate its rapid leaf closure. The light intensity modulates the speed of rhythmic unfolding behaviour, visualised through a magnetic particle diffusion mechanism that reflects gradual movement. These two feedback pathways mimic the plant’s mechanical responses to touch and light respectively, and provide users with intuitive visual cues. Experimental results show that the system can stably translate plant electrical signals into perceptible mechanical behaviours, allowing the user to “see” the plant’s response process and re-establish the perception of the plant’s life state in the interaction. This study explores the potential of robots as human-nature emotion mediators, and provides new pathways for ecological education and interspecies communication.

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RoboPudica: Enhancing Awareness in Human - Plant Interaction via Biomimetic Interface

  • Hao Liu,
  • Hooman Samani,
  • Saina Akhond

摘要

This paper aims to establish social interaction between humans and plants through a robotic interface in order to evoke human understanding and concern for plant behaviour and life states. We designed a robotic interaction system that integrates plant signals with environmental inputs. Touch and light serve as two distinct stimuli, each triggering a different responsive pathway in the system. The touch input activates pre-recorded electrophysiological signals from Mimosa Pudica plant, which are mapped to motor commands that drive a flower-like structure to simulate its rapid leaf closure. The light intensity modulates the speed of rhythmic unfolding behaviour, visualised through a magnetic particle diffusion mechanism that reflects gradual movement. These two feedback pathways mimic the plant’s mechanical responses to touch and light respectively, and provide users with intuitive visual cues. Experimental results show that the system can stably translate plant electrical signals into perceptible mechanical behaviours, allowing the user to “see” the plant’s response process and re-establish the perception of the plant’s life state in the interaction. This study explores the potential of robots as human-nature emotion mediators, and provides new pathways for ecological education and interspecies communication.