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Associate Professor Kasper Stoy, Ph.D., is a robotics and embodied artificial intelligence researcher holding an associate professor position at the Software and Systems Section of the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

He currently serves as the head of the research group "Robots, Evolution, and Art Lab" (REAL) and is the coordinator of the E.U. project EVOBLISS) and the PI of ITU for the E.U. project flora-robotica.

Kasper is an internationally recognized researcher in modular robotics and multi-robot systems. He has published more than sixty papers in international conference proceedings or journals and the book "Self-Reconfigurable Robots: An Introduction" (MIT Press, 2010). He is also interested in commercial application of robotics and in this capacity co-founded Universal Robots. He holds a M.Sc. degree in computer science and physics from the University of Aarhus, Denmark (1999) as well as a Ph.D. degree in computer system engineering from the University of Southern Denmark (2003).

Abstract
If we consider plants from an engineering perspective they are amazing machines: based on just sun light, water, and nutrients in the ground they produce material, lots of it, adapt to the local growing conditions and do this while maintaining high aesthetic qualities. Furthermore, once dead, plants are completely biodegradable.

Our vision is to harness the wonderful qualities of plants and combine them with robot elements to grow structures at an architectural scale. The idea is to make a symbiotic relationship between plants and artificial elements such that there is a mutual beneficial relationship between them.

On one hand, the plant is maintained in homeostasis with the aid of the robot. On the other, the robot can exploit the growth of the plant to reinforce itself and tap into the sensing capabilities of the plant. We refer to these plant-robot hybrids as a new species called flora-robotica. Exploring these flora-robotica lifeforms as artificial life is interesting in its own right, but we aim to make it possible for architects to control the robotic elements and through them the plant to favour an architectural function of flora-robotica collectives.

Link:
Kasper Stoy

[image source: Vive Les Robots]
[source: Vive Les Robots!]