SlothBot: Nature-Inspired Slow Robot Merges Conservation with Technology

Scientists are recently testing SlothBot, a cute sloth robot that merges conservation with technology. It is slow and energy-efficient and can be deployed to monitor crops, animals, plants, and its surroundings.

It is currently at the Canopy Walk of the Atlanta Botanical Garden, being tested as a new tool for saving endangered species. It was designed to have the same low-energy strategy employed by real sloths to demonstrate the use of slowness for specific applications.

It is solar-powered and uses innovative technology for power management. It is hung on a cable connecting two trees and can monitor weather, carbon dioxide, temperature, and other various information.

The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the Georgia Institute of Technology chair and professor Magnus Egerstedt says that slowness is in the robot's design. Its energy efficiency and slowness, he says, lets SlothBot stay in the environment and make observations of things that can only be seen when one is continuously present in a place for months and years.

SlothBot is roughly three feet long, with a 3D-printed shell that protects its electrical and electronic components. It only moves when necessary. It also locates sunlight once its batteries need to be recharged.

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For environmental applications, SlothBot can travel between cables and monitor a large territory. The Garden's vice president for conservation and research Emily Coffey says that SlothBot unites robotics, technology, and conservation. She says that in their conservation research on ecosystems and endangered plants, SlothBot can help pave exciting new ways to achieve conservation goals.

The robot can be a tool for a better understanding of abiotic factors that affect ecosystems and develop information for the protection of species and ecosystems. It can help scientists do remote research and help them understand aspects of certain phenomena such as pollinators and the interactions between animals and plants, according to Coffey. She adds that SlothBot offers a way to work for species conservation.

Egerstedt became inspired to make the SlothBot after visiting a Costa Rican vineyard with two-toed sloths creeping on overhead wires at the canopy. He says strategical slowness is what they need in deploying robots for extended periods.

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Other robots have demonstrated how slowness can be useful, such as the Mars Rovers, which collected information on Mars for over 12 years. For these explorers, speed isn't necessary, according to Egerstedt, and they learned many things as they leisurely fulfilled their mission.

Apart from conservation, the sloth robot can also help in precision agriculture, in which its sensors and camera, while situated on overhead wires, can help detect crop diseases earlier, measure environmental factors, and monitor insect infestation. SlothBot is slated to be deployed to South America and observe orchid pollination and endangered frogs.

SlothBot does not have wheels, which can be easily obstructed by mud and rocks. It does not fly, either, as it is energy-consuming. This is what makes wire crawling important.

Coffey says SlothBot also stimulates conservation interest in visitors of the botanical garden in a unique way, and help show the merger of technology with conservation. It should especially trigger interest in kids, according to Egerstedt, and get the new generation to be interested in the contribution robotics can make.

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