Descripción del proyecto
Lo milirrobots blandos se sumergen en la agricultura de precisión
Puede que el primer milirrobot nadador autónomo del mundo sea pequeño (su tamaño es inferior a un centímetro), pero se prevé que tenga una gran repercusión en el campo de la robótica y la agricultura de precisión. En primer lugar, solo necesitará luz ambiental para funcionar. Además, este milirrobot (que parece un platelminto) se puede programar para supervisar continuamente espacios interiores y exteriores. El milirrobot ha sido desarrollado por el proyecto financiado con fondos europeos SOMIRO, que ahora lo probará y optimizará. El proyecto está coordinado por la división de Tecnología de Microsistemas de la Universidad de Uppsala y cuenta con la participación de nueve socios académicos e industriales de seis países europeos. Los socios industriales utilizarán tecnologías de ensamblaje de vanguardia que permitan ampliar el volumen de producción.
Objetivo
SOMIRO
Precision agriculture for rice farming and smart methods such as aquaponics are vital to ensure a safe supply of fresh food for Europe while reducing our environmental footprint. In line with the Digitising European Industry initiative under their description of smart agriculture, the SOMIRO project will develop a flat-worm-inspired mm-scale swimming robot with month-long energy autonomy, local intelligence, and ability to continuously generate data and optically communicate to reduce farming’s environmental impact in terms of carbon footprint, over fertilization, pesticide use, and overfeeding. Swimming robots would cover a much larger area than stationary systems and could be rapidly deployed and self-redistribute where most needed. They may serve as a stand-alone monitoring solution for indoor farming or complement drone-based remote sensing in outdoors scenarios.
Until today, no energy autonomous (untethered and with local intelligence) milli-robot capable of hours of continuous operation has been demonstrated. The major reason for this is power limitation: locomotion requires much power and small robots have very limited energy storage and energy harvesting. Our milli-robot will be less than 1 cm long and show how soft and stretchable systems, with undulating swimming like flat worms, require far less energy for locomotion than other systems of comparable size. For power, it will not rely on any dedicated infrastructure but only on ambient light.
The design of SOMIRO focuses on its industry transfer: industrial partners will use cutting-edge assembly technologies that can scale up to production volumes with no change in process. The bulk materials are low-cost elastomers and polymers and the electronic circuits will be based on commercial components. Throughout the project, all application scenarios and exploitation plans will be developed in close collaboration among the SOMIRO partner enterprises and end-users, and external industrial stakeholders.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Convocatoria de propuestas
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaConvocatoria de subcontratación
H2020-ICT-2020-2
Régimen de financiación
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinador
751 05 Uppsala
Suecia