The IndaPlant Project: An Act of Trans-Species Giving

(Short paper)

Keywords: IndaPlant, robotics, eco-robotics, mobile plant, plantbot, machine vision, floraborg, cyber-physical interface.

The IndaPlant Project: An Act of Trans-Species Giving is a generative artwork in which houseplants are robotically enabled to freely move in search of sunlight and water. This project has successfully constructed a floraborg, a term its creators coined to describe an entity that is part plant and part robot. Originally debuted at ISEA2012, the interdisciplinary collaboration now consists of a community of three light-sensing, robotic vehicles, each of which responds to the needs of a potted plant by moving it around in three-dimensional space. This paper presents an overview of current floraborg life and details the research in and across art, engineering, computer science and biology that makes self-sufficient, data-sharing IndaPlants possible. These initiatives include the creation of a self-monitoring computer vision system, a self-watering mechanism that utilizes plants’ transpiration, and a cyber-physical interface to support plant-machine communication, and by extension, a new paradigm in plant-to-human interaction.