Communicating with Plants using Conformable Electrodes | Prof Chen Xiaodong (MSE)
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 Published On Dec 30, 2021

You are probably planting some flowers or herbs on your balcony. To really understand the minds of your plants, you need to understand plant language. Electrical signal is one type of plant language. To capture and translate plant electrical language, our team invented a plant conformable electrode. Traditionally, plant electrodes are rigid metal wires that can harm the plants. Our electrode is made of a sticky and conductive thermogel material for high-quality signal delivery. Using this electrode, we can communicate with Venus flytrap to convert it into a robotic gripper. The flytrap connected with a Wi-Fi chip can be controlled by a smartphone. The flytrap robot can capture fine wires and moving objects. Our electrode can also monitor the electrical signal of a tobacco plant when it is heated. Moreover, when a plant is watered, an electrical signal is also captured by our electrode, triggering a message notification on smartphone. Through decoding plant electrical language using our electrode, we hope to take better care of plants surrounding us. This technology can be utilised in precision agriculture in the future, where every crop can grow healthily and happily.

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