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Building robots requires time, technical skills and the right materials-and sometimes a little fungus.
While creating a new pair of robots, Cornell University researchers cultivated an unlikely ingredient found not in the laboratory but on the forest floor: fungal mycelium balls. By using electrical signals inherent in mycelium balls, researchers have discovered a new way to control “bio-hybrid” robots that may respond better to the environment than purely synthetic robots.
The team’s paper,”Electrophysiological Measurement of Fungal Hyphal Sphere Mediated Sensorimotor Control in Robotics,” was published in the journal Scientific Robotics. The lead author is Anand Mishra, an assistant researcher in the Organic Robotics Laboratory led by Rob Shepherd, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University’s School of Engineering, and senior author of the paper.
“This paper is the first of many that will use the fungus kingdom to provide environmental sensing and command signals to robots to increase their level of autonomy,” Shepard said. “By growing mycelium balls into the robot’s electronic devices, we can allow biological hybrid machines to sense the environment and respond. In this case, we use light as input, but in the future it will be chemical. Future potential robots could sense soil chemicals in intercultivated crops and decide when to add more fertilizer, perhaps alleviating downstream agricultural impacts such as harmful algal blooms, for example.
When designing future robots, engineers draw many inspiration from the animal kingdom, whose machines can imitate the way creatures move, sense the environment, and even regulate internal temperature through perspiration. Some robots incorporate living materials, such as cells from muscle tissue, but these complex human systems have difficulty maintaining health and function. After all, making robots survive is not always easy.
Hyphae balls are the underground nutritional part of mushrooms, and they have many advantages. They can grow in harsh conditions. They also have the ability to sense chemical and biological signals and respond to multiple inputs.
“If you think about a synthetic system-say any passive sensor-we’re just using it for one purpose. But living systems respond to touch, respond to light, respond to heat, and even respond to unknown factors such as signals,”Misra said. “That’s why we think, well, if you want to build the robots of the future, how can they work in unexpected environments? We can use these living systems, and the robot will respond to any unknown input.”
However, finding a way to combine mushrooms and robots requires more than just technical and gardening skills.
“You have to have a background in mechanical engineering, electronics, some mycology, some neurobiology, some kind of signal processing,” Mishra said. “All of these areas together build this system.”
Mishra collaborated with a range of interdisciplinary researchers. He consulted with Bruce Johnson, a senior researcher in neurobiology and behavior, and learned how to record electrical signals carried in neuron-like ion channels in the mycelium bulb membrane. Kathie Hodge, associate professor of plant pathology and plant microbial biology at the School of Comprehensive Plant Sciences at the School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, taught Mishra how to grow a clean mycelium ball culture because when you stick the electrode to the fungus.
The system developed by Mishra consists of an electrical interface that blocks vibration and electromagnetic interference and instantly and accurately records and processes the electrophysiological activity of the mycelium ball, and a controller that is inspired by a central pattern generator (a neural circuit). Essentially, the system reads the raw electrical signal, processes it and identifies rhythmic spikes in the mycelium ball, and then converts this information into digital control signals that are sent to the robot’s actuators.
Two biological hybrid robots were built: a software robot shaped like a spider and a wheeled robot.
The robot completed three experiments. First, the robot walks and rolls separately as a response to natural continuous spikes in the mycelium ball signal. The researchers then stimulated the robots with ultraviolet light, causing them to change their gait and demonstrate the ability of the mycelium balls to respond to the environment. In the third case, the researchers were able to completely cover the natural signals of the mycelium balls.
The impact goes far beyond robots and fungi.
“This kind of plan is not just about controlling robots,” Mishra said. “It’s also about establishing a real connection with living systems. Because once you hear the signal, you will understand what happened. Maybe the signal comes from some kind of pressure. So you will see the body’s reactions because those signals we can’t visualize, but the robot is visualizing.
Co-authors include Johnson, Hodge, Jaeseok Kim of the University of Florence, Italy, and Hannah Baghdadi, undergraduate research assistant.
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Original text:https://techxplore.com/news/2024-08-biohybrid-robots-electrical-impulses-mushrooms.html
More information: Anand Kumar Mishra et al., Sensorimotor control of robots mediated through electrophysiological measurements of fungal mycelium balls, Scientific Robotics (2024). DOI：10.1126/scirobotics.adk8019
Journal information: “Scientific Robot”
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