Special drone can land on trees

Scientists have developed a special drone that can autonomously collect samples on tree branches. The team included researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in Birmensdorf, as well as the French-Canadian company Spygen , based in Le Bourget du Lac Cedex and Montreal in the Canadian province of Quebec, according to a media release.

The collected samples contain so-called environmental DNA. Laboratory analysis can then be used to determine which species are present in a given area. This helps ecologists to gain knowledge about biodiversity in areas that are otherwise difficult to access. The particular challenge for the roboticists was reportedly to program the flying device so that it could land on branches with varying degrees of vibration and remain there for a certain amount of time.

The new drone is being trained in the Masoala rainforest at Zurich Zoo. "This has the advantage of knowing which species are present," explains Stefano Mintchev. He is co-author of the study, which has just been published in the journal Science Robotics. "This will help us better assess how completely we are collecting environmental DNA traces with this technique or if we are missing something."

Now the drone is being prepared and further improved for its use in a competition in a 100-hectare rainforest area in Singapore. There, it must be able to fly to and collect samples from ten times as many trees in just 24 hours as it has been able to do in three days. mm