Manini Banerjee    
+
is a: (nature + human) centric designer and researcher finding symbiosis between organic and artificial life

Information | Archive 
The Biopod Co. 
An organization democratizing the restoration of wetlands, equipping communities worldwide to come together and save our most biodiverse and productive ecosystems
Bio - intelligence
Designing cars powered by organisms, not algorithms
TEDx

Designing living machines with biological components to reduce e-waste
Aero

Designing intelligent materials embeded on robotic drones that sense air health and sequesters toxins within a location 
Chitobot
Designing technology with a perishable skin
PFV  
A vehicle inspired by living systems that facilitates a bridge between city and nature 
S(kin)-orb
Enhancing human-to-human communication through personal robots 
Threads

Turning clothes into computers, facilitating human-AI symbiosis to enhance productivity, creativity, and wellbeing
29.4°+4°…
Speculating human mutation in the age of global warming
Living Archives 
DNA data storage as a means of Interrogating our post life digital remains
Living Materials 

Designing materials that conduct ecosystem services 

Robo-reparans 
In the absense of humans, robots learn to take care of eachother


 

© 2019-2024 Manini Banerjee

Bio-intelligence

bi·o in·tel·li·gence

Designing cars powered by organisms, not algorithms



Details
Microbiological Culture • Robotics Design • Technological Anthropology

Client
Hyundai Motor Group ~ Hyundai Future Experience Research Collaborative 2022

Date
2022

Team
Mehek Vohra • Manini Banerjee • Paula Gaetano Adi

Role
 Concept, Microbiological Culture

As seen in:
"Driverless Cars' Need for Data is sparking a new Space Race." Autonomous vehicles will generate as much as 40 terabytes of data an hour from cameras, radar, and other sensors—equivalent to an iPhone's use over 3,000 years.... (Bloomberg)  


Data processing, storage, and production require carbon-emitting data centers.  Through 
Bio-intelligence, an alternative paradigm to Artificial Intelligence, we challenge an opportunity for sustainable, data-free navigation.  

How would a car work if organisms instead of algorithms drove it?  

What if we moved from nature-inspired to nature-collaborated?  

For many years, we rode horse carriages and controlled the horse rather than allowing it to operate using its own intelligence. This freedom is the essence of Bio-intelligence




We researched the fungal animal and living memristor: Slime Mold, Mycetoza, Physerium Polycephalum, or
"the blob" during this project. 

We chose this organism as it:

1) Uses Phototaxis and Chemotaxis instead of sensors, cameras and data.
2) Does not rely on electricity for data storage, and memorizes past routes.
3) Operates as a collective and learns past routes.
4) Demonstrates generalizability in navigating new + old terrains

Slime mold demonstrates intelligence - it can grow, learn, predict, and adapt depending on its environment. It can remember where it has previously been, and can navigate new terrains without having to be manually trained.




The mould shoots out protoplasmic tubes searching for an efficient path toward oat flakes.

In one of the experiments we conducted, we placed its favorite food - oats - at specific locations in a petri dish and recorded its growth over 3 days. It ended up creating efficient paths between each oat, proving its navigational intelligence.

Autonomous vehicles require a lot of training to memorize and learn routes, is there a way slime mould can collaborate with these vehicles to make them more efficient?
We set up an experiment to test this our theory


1) Robot navigation: Has to navigate through every section of the maze before finding the most efficient path. This process takes time, a lot of computation and data storage.


2) Slime Navigation: The same maze being solved by the Slime mold - uses no sensors, processing algorithms or data storage.
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However, whilst working with living matter, there are challenges regarding speed of growth and life spans.

Is there a way we can immortalize Biointelligence?

To tackle such questions we created a grasshopper simulation to mimic slime growth. 
In the simulation, we would input the start and end points, and allow the simulated Slime Mold to calculate the most effective path. This path is then fed into the robot.

The resolved form is a camera mounted over the autonomous robot carrying a smart petri navigating cassette. We imagine computer vision being used to read the slime mould's movements and informing the vehicles navigation. The smart petri contains self healing agar and programmable oats to simulate a range of paths using harnessing the Bioingelligence of the organism.