Two Italian scientists Cecilia Laschi, of the Sant’Anna Superior School in Pisa, and Barbara Mazzolai, of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa, are among 25 women who have made a decisive contribution to robotics, according to the journal RoboHub.
Laschi chose the octopus as a model to realise the first ‘soft’ robot in the world while Mazzolai, who coordinates the IIT Micro-BioRobotics centre at Pontedera, heads the Plantoide project, the first robot in the world inspired by plants. The 25 women “were chosen for the pure geniality they showed to arrive at the top of their fields,” the journal said.
Laschi said “robotics is a fascinating discipline for its inter-disciplinary nature and for the opportunity it offers in tackling important scientific and technological challenges and, at the same time, developing applications that respond to social and economic needs”.
Mazzolai said that “translating the principles that allow plants to move and perceive the environment into an autonomous robot capable of monitoring the quality of the soil is one of the recent challenges that we have taken up”. Such robots can be useful for the environment, medicine and for exploring other planets, she added.
News by ANSA
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