# Plant Robotics for Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Robots: Insights from Actuation Characteristics

## TL;DR

This paper explores using plants to build sustainable robots, focusing on their natural ability to move and actuate.

## Contribution

It provides a focused review of plant actuation characteristics for robotic applications.

## Key findings

- Plants offer biodegradable and renewable materials for eco-friendly robots.
- Actuation is key to enabling physical movement in plant-based robotic systems.
- The paper identifies plant species and behaviors relevant to robotic actuation.

## Abstract

Robots play an ever‐expanding role in society by performing a broad range of tasks. However, there are growing concerns about their environmental sustainability, as many conventional robotic systems rely on materials that are neither renewable nor degradable. Consequently, significant efforts are being made to develop eco‐friendly robots built from sustainable and biodegradable materials. In this context, plants represent a promising direction, as the biomaterials composing plants are biodegradable, and their inherent multifunctionality as living organisms, including sensing, actuation, energy harvesting, and self‐healing, makes them strong candidates for realizing biodegradable robotic systems. Moreover, they are abundant and renewable resources. Recent studies have demonstrated plant‐based robotic systems that harness some of these features, helping to establish plant robotics as an emerging research field. Among the many functions plants offer, actuation is pivotal, as it enables physical robotic motion, such as locomotion and grasping, which substantially broadens the potential applications of plant robots. Focusing on plant movement, this article reviews key plant species and their behaviors through the perspective of actuation characteristics. It also examines the current landscape of plant‐based robotic systems and outlines future research directions in this rapidly growing field.

Plants are promising materials for building sustainable and eco‐friendly robots due to their inherent multifunctionality, with actuation playing a crucial role. This article focuses on the physical movements of plants and, from the perspective of actuation characteristics, explores representative plant species and their behaviors, the current state of plant robots, and future prospects for this emerging field.