Smart Solutions From The Plant Kingdom

Smart Solutions From The Plant Kingdom: beyond the animal models

This is the title of the exciting workshop organized by Stefano Mancuso together with Barbara Mazzolai, from the Centre for Micro-BioRobotics of IIT@SSSA.

The workshop will be held on October 24, 2011 at Accademia dei Georgofili in Florence (Italy) with the aims of: providing an authoritative overview of solutions inspired by plants; stimulating a fruitful and attractive discussion on this emerging scientific area; creating an occasion in which scientists and engineers can offer different perspectives and viewpoints in developing a new class of biomimetic solutions, which exhibit different performance in terms of materials, fabrication technologies, sensors, actuators, computing solutions, etc.; outlining the current opportunities and challenges of biomimetics approach.

The objectives of the workshop are to share and discuss in a broad community the current state of the art concerning the researches in the research areas that look at plants for as inspiration source, to analyze the potentiality of field and how it can impact in future technologies in general, as well as to encourage collaborations and inspire the exploration of novel research lines or projects.

Biomimetics is attracting the interest of a growing number of scientists and researchers worldwide. The Plant Kingdom represents an amazing source of inspiration for designing and developing smart solutions in different fields. Mimicking plants requires deep investigation of new materials, mechanisms, sensors, actuators, and control schemes and can lead to breakthrough advances of technologies. In this workshop, we wish to contribute to the discussion on the development of biomimetic solutions inspired by plants. In particular, this workshop will look at the importance of integrating knowledge coming from different fields, as biology, engineering, chemistry, computer science, and physics to conceive and develop advanced systems.

Programme:

9.00 – 9.10 Welcome – Franco Scaramuzzi, President of the Accademia dei Georgofili

9.10 – 9.20 Welcome – Barbara Mazzolai, Centre for Micro-BioRobotics@SSSA, Pontedera, Italy.
Stefano Mancuso Dpt. Plant, Soil & Environment, University of Florence, Italy

9.20 – 9.50 Barbara Mazzolai – Centre for Micro-BioRobotics of IIT@SSSA, Pontedera, Italy
Robotics and ICT technologies inspired by plants

9.50 – 10.20 Stefano Mancuso – Dpt. Plant, Soil & Environment University of Florence, Italy
Communication in plant root

10.20 – 10.50 COFFEE BREAK

10.50 – 11.35 George Jeronimidis – Centre for Biomimetics, University of Reading (UK)
Fibre hierarchies in plants: the key to smart solutions

11.35 – 12.20 Robin Seidel – Plant Biomechanics Group University Freiburg, Germany
Innovative biomimetic materials inspired by plants

12.20 – 13.05 Michaela Eder – Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany
Design principles of plant actuation

13.05 – 14.30 LUNCH BREAK

14.30 – 15.15 Frantisek Baluska – Institute of Cellular and Molecular Botany, University of Bonn, Germany
Growing roots and their searching behavior

15.15 – 16.00 Guido Caldarelli – Institute for Complex Systems, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy
Quantifying the taxonomic diversity in real species communities

16.00 – 16.30 COFFEE BREAK

16.30 – 17.15 Paco Calvo – Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain
Adaptive behavior and direct perception: ecological lessons from plant neurobiology

17.15 – 18.00 Camilla Pandolfi – European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
Seeds, dispersal and biomimicry

18.00 – 18.15 Conclusions

The abstracts of the different talks will be uploaded soon.