Empa wants to control environmental damage with drones
A team of researchers from Empa and Imperial College London has developed drones that equip trees with sensors that detect environmental damage.
To keep an eye on the ecological balance of the forest, Empa offers a solution through the use of drones. Climate change, insect infestation or browsing by game - the forest is exposed to a variety of harmful environmental influences that need to be monitored. Empa researchers have already stationed sensors in forests for this purpose, measuring temperatures, air quality or moisture content of the trunks.
Such sensors can also be used to track the behavior of forest animals, register forest fires and insect infestations, and detect the influence of human activities on the forest. However, positioning sensors on trees is a complex and risky undertaking.
Flying robots à la Robin Hood
(Source: Empa)
Smart materials on the trigger
The researchers' goal is to build a network of sensors that could be used to better monitor the sensitive forest ecosystem. "Drones offer a particular advantage when it comes to regions that are difficult to access, such as the Amazon," says the researcher. "Drones can be used to obtain large amounts of very precise data of environmental damage in the forest," Kovac explains. "I see the drones as artificial forest dwellers that control the habitat so that we can better protect it based on the data we obtain."
For their service in the forest, the drones are equipped with a camera and a launching device for the sensor arrows. Thanks to shape memory metals - "smart" materials that react to heat and return to their original structure after deformation - the launching of the arrows can be precisely controlled. In addition, the drones can be used as mobile sensors, collecting data themselves as they settle on branches. Researchers have already been able to test the drones' capabilities during flight experiments in the indoor flight arena at Empa's NEST experimental robot testing space in Dübendorf and the test site at Imperial College.
Currently, humans control the drones. Using the camera image, the researchers select suitable trees as targets and shoot the arrows. In a next step, the flying robots will eventually learn to carry out their work autonomously so that they can be deployed even in the most remote locations. Before such missions can take place in nature, however, the link between human control and autonomous robot work must be solidly balanced so that the drones can cope with the vagaries of a living environment, the researchers say.
www.empa.ch/web/s604/Drohnen-im-Wald
The research is supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Offshore Robotics for Certification of Assets Hub (ORCA), EU's Horizon 2020 and the British Academy of Sciences The Royal Society.
