Gizmos & Gadgets: Robo Gardener Invented for Farming on Mars

April 24, 2016 – An aerospace engineering student at University of Colorado boulder, Heather Hava, has just one a $15,000 “Eat-It” undergraduate prize for inventing a robotic gardener which she hopes will one day be used on Mars. Her specialty is in a new and burgeoning field – bioastronautics. She is past winner in 2012 of a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship.

Hava has focused her research on gardening in space developing plant growth automation systems. She is also working on developing Bioregenerative Life Support Systems critical to the closed loop environments needed to create self-sustaining habitats both in space and on the lunar and Martian surface.

Hava is CEO of Stellar Synergetics as well as another company, Autoponics. Their focus is on building controlled environments for growing plants both here on Earth as well as in outer space.

The “Eat-It” prize is one of several Lemelson-MIT student prizes honoring inventors across the United States. Other prize categories include: “Cure-It” for inventions to improve healthcare, “Drive-It” for technology to enhance transportation, and “Use-It” for technology inventions aimed at producing products for consumer use in daily life.

Hava has invented a smart pot she calls SPOT. It is high-tech hydroponic chamber for growing a wide range of fruits and vegetables. Sensors are connected to an artificial intelligence application called AgQ, which tracks and reports on plant health, LED lighting conditions, water circulation status checks, pH levels, plant growth, temperature, and humidity.

Hava’s two companies, Stellar Synergetics and Autoponics are focused on commercialization with the former focused on SPOT and the latter on AgQ. Watch Hava talk about her research creating what is an essential for human long-term habitation in near and deep space.

Hava in 2014 led a team of University of Colorado students who entered the X-Hab NASA challenge to produce functional prototype systems for extraterrestrial and deep-space exploration. That work led to co-development with NASA of ROGR, the Remotely Operated Gardening Rover, a prototype designed to work independently or beside astronauts tending to crops in space or in gardens on the Moon and Mars.