Robot with origami leaves can follow the sun like a real plant

By Jason Arunn Murugesu

Suleyman Doruk Cezan, Hasan Tarik Baytekin, and Bilge Baytekin

Many plants naturally bend towards bright light. Now a robot has been built that copies a technique plants use to do the same thing.

Creating a robot that can sense and adjust automatically to its environment without any need for programming or maintenance is one of the major goals of robotics. A machine that could control and regulate itself in this way can then behave like a living organism, says Bilge Baytekin at Bilkent University in Turkey.

Baytekin …