🍄Fungus among us

Robot fungi may be coming to a field near you. Aaron Tremper writes for SN about this new generation of biohybrid technology. 

🤖How it works

Anand Mishra, an engineer at Cornell University, has successfully grown mycelia (the thread-like body of a fungus) directly into electrodes attached to two separate robots. The fungi communicate through electrical signals similar to those produced by heart or nerve cells, triggering the biobots to walk and roll around. Flashes of light compel the mycelia to change the robots’ gait and otherwise respond to the environment. 

What’s the application?

Mishra envisions use cases in agriculture, where eventually farming hardware could include biodegradable components that are grown on site. For example, mushroom robots could be deployed to walk through fields, monitoring soil conditions, and decomposing at the end of their lifecycle, or when it’s time to upgrade to replacements.

A few companies and institutions are sowing innovation in electronics used for industrial and urban gardening. 

• CropX is an Israeli company with $30 million in Series C funding that offers a variety of soil sensors. While they don’t yet produce biodegradable sensors, the company’s mission is to reduce water and chemical usage while increasing crop yields, and is committed to more sustainable hardware manufacturing processes and product life cycles.
• Semios raised over $100 million in private equity in 2021.