Slothbot, a robot that monitors the environment in a sustainable way by moving very slowly

Nature itself often offers to the scientists suggestions on how to improve our lives, overcome problems and obstacles and how to relate to the environment itself. 

So here is Slothbot, the hyper-efficient proff-of-concept that’s monitoring the environment very, very slowly. A system for environmental monitoring and precision agriculture that takes its cue from the sloth, a very slow mammal, suggesting that energy saving and energy efficiency can be better than fast and always require a recharge and that it moves only when it has to measure environmental changes observed only with a long-term presence, thanks to two photovoltaic panels. 

The robot was presented at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Montreal. 

Magnus Egerstedt, chair of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and principal investigator for Slothbot says: «In robotics, it seems we are always pushing for faster, more agile, and more extreme robots. But there are many applications where there is no need to be fast. You just have to be out there persistently over long periods of time, observing what’s going on». 

Mechanically, SlothBot consists of two bodies connected by an actuated hinge with a driving motor connected to a rim with a mounted tire. The robot was design using 3D-printed parts for the gearing and wire-switching mechanisms needed to crawl through a network of wires in the trees, thanks to the collaboration between Gennaro Notomista and Yousef Emam. 

But why that’s name? Real-life sloths are small mammals that live in jungle canopies of South and Central America. With their slow metabolism, sloths rest as much 22 hours a day and seldom descend from the trees where they can spend their entire lives. 

Jonathan Pauli, an associate professor in the forest & wildlife ecology department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who consulted with the Georgia Tech team on the project, says that «the nice thing about a very slow life history is that you don’t really need a lot of energy input. You can have a long duration and persistence in a limited area with very little energy inputs over a long period of time». 

Egerstedt also says: «The thing that costs energy more than anything else is movement. Moving is much more expensive than sensing or thinking. For environmental robots, you should only move when you absolutely have to. We had to think about what that would be like».