Self-Driven “Vine” Seeks Light and Heat

This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore.

Thanks to eons of evolution, vines have the ability to seek out light sources, growing in the direction that will optimize their chances of absorbing sunlight and thriving. Now, researchers have succeeded in creating a vine-inspired crawling bot that can achieve similar feats, seeking out and moving towards light and heat sources. It’s described in a study published last month in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.

Shivani Deglurkar, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Mechanical and