EcoBotics: Advantages and challenges of building a bamboo robot arm

Sustainability and sustainable development concepts are frequently the driving force for research related to optimizing energy consumption and material use in order to reduce the carbon footprint for different products. EcoBotics aims to analyse the question of sustainability in the area of robotics. In this paper, as a first example of EcoBotics, it is examined what are the advantages and challenges of exchanging the aluminium structure of lightweight robot arms with a sustainable material. Bamboo is used in order to exemplify a sustainable material, but the challenges and the proposed solutions for open problems are valid for any material causing a robot structure with low stiffness.