Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have developed an innovative drone for assessing biodiversity in forests. It is able to push its way through branches.

A team of researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in Birmensdorf, in the canton of Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and the University of Pisa has developed a drone capable of navigating between the branches of trees. The way animals move was used as a model for the drone's movements. As stated in a WSL press release, this is a significant step towards establishing the state of biodiversity in remote or hard-to-reach areas.

Drones usually perceive shrubs and branches as obstacles to be avoided. Yet it is precisely in densely growing vegetation that valuable data for biodiversity monitoring can be obtained. WSL notes that the researchers took their inspiration from animals, which as they move are able to sense and react to everything that comes into contact with their bodies. The researchers "equipped the drone with the ability to recognise contact with its environment". The drone is made from a material with a low coefficient of friction. Emanuele Aucone, the study's lead author, states in the journal Nature Communications : "Our work is the first contribution to monitoring areas that are currently unreachable or difficult to reach."

In earlier research, the team at the Environmental Robotics Laboratory run by ETH and WSL had already used drones to collect DNA from individual tree branches, but had been unable to penetrate deeper into the canopy. Emanuele Aucone adds: "Flexible obstacles such as branches are quite tricky, because they set the drone oscillating when it tries to cross them or squeeze in among them. That is why we had to design it more specifically."

https://www.s-ge.com/en/article/news/20242-robotics-innovative-drone?ct