PLANTS

_ Description

The aim of the project is to enable the development of synergistic and scalable mixed communities
of communicating artefacts and plants.

This project proposes to develop complex interactive systems by embedding sensors on and around individual plants, and by developing middleware that will enable the integration of distributed systems composed of sensors and artefacts into ecosystems.

The project is seeking to merge hardware, software, and distributed wireless, modular systems to develop a comprehensive technology platform that provides interfaces to plants that ranging from macroscopic human interfaces down to microscopic levels.

The project aims to develop truly novel technology platforms by focusing on solutions for prototype system demonstrators feasible during the project lifetime, and commercially viable solutions within 5 to 10 years.

_ Outcomes

Methodologies & Tools

Design and develop sensors and sensor networks, which will be implanted around and in plants and will transform biological signals into digital signals.

Design and develop biosensors and actuators, which will provide artefacts with the ability to induce complex responses from plant-life and perceive their environment in a plant-like way.

Design and implement specific middleware (ePlantOS) in order to integrate complex distributedsystems of sensors and artefacts into a balanced eco-system, for the purposes of non-predictive study of selected plant-life and interaction with its environment (people included)

Studies & Publications

Study plant eco-systems in order to understand sensing and communication mechanisms, which will be used as models for the specification of the plant-artefact interfacing mechanisms.

Other

Create two demonstrators, where intermediate results will be used for evaluation and optimisation and the final results will be analysed and displayed.