Robotic plant has LED flowers

By Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 11, 2009 11:59 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

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A bit of fun. This is what a robotic plant looks like, with (white and infrared) LEDs in the flower.

It's name is Himawari (Japanese for sunflower) and its design has apparently been influenced by the motion pattern of sunflowers, with it reacting to human movements. The stalk is driven by servo motors and there are alloy actuators in the head, but it is the reflected light from the white LED tentacles - and infrared LEDs which are used to reflect IR light - that enables movement to be tracked.

Thanks to botropolis.com, and more info can be found on the AnderDesign website:

Himawari is an originally created robotic plant, influenced by the sunflower. Using an infrared camera in the plant as eyes, Himawari moves, following human movement. The stalk of the plant is driven by servo motors. There are two kinds of LEDs in the head of the plant. Infrared LEDs which are used to reflect IR light from the human motion into the camera, and white LEDs that shine inside the flower. Originally developed shape-memory alloy actuators are used to move the petals of the flower and the tentacles inside the head. 80 shape-memory alloy actuators and 48 white LEDs wriggle and twinkle according to human movements. This wriggling and twinkling reaction introduces the expression of Himawari.

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Humour

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Himawari,
plant

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Paul Ward
As Opto Product Manager at Farnell, Paul is overseeing the company's involvement in the rapidly evolving and high profile LED lighting market sector.

As well as ensuring that Farnell offers the latest technologies and products related to solid state lighting, Paul is also responsible for ensuring that the resources are in place to make it easier for design engineers to specify and design-in LED solutions for their applications.

Educated in Production Engineering and Design at Sheffield Hallam University, Paul has worked in various engineering, training and marketing roles for companies including C&K switches, ITT Cannon, Cherry and LED specialist Chicago Miniature Lighting.

Away from the world of LEDs, Paul is a Founder of the charity RTTW, Photographer and Harley Davidson rider; he has ridden and snapped across Europe, New Zealand and the USA on his chrome hog!

Gordon Routledge
Gordon Routledge is one of the original pioneers in LED illumination having worked with LEDs in illumination applications since 1996. Currently VP of Illumination at Dialight, Gordon founded Lumidrives in 2001, having previously been managing director at ACDC Lighting Systems. Gordon has a degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from university of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.

Ian Bryant
Ian Bryant is Business Development Manager LED Division at Carclo Technical Plastics. He has worked on and off at Carclo (Formerly Combined Optical Industrial) since leaving school. He has worked through the company from Toolmaking to starting the company on the road of LED optics business some 6-7 years ago, starting with a standard range and more in line with the business of custom optics. In between all this he has worked in engineering and as a works Director for a hydraulics company but kept getting pulled back to the optics industrial. We are able to offer the full solution from idea to parts so have a very good understanding on what is needed. You will see some posts from our design team also under my name.