Environmental scientists and other agencies regularly use a range of sensors to monitor forests.
Depending on the type, these sensors can track changes in temperature, humidity, light and the presence and movements of various animals.
As well as conservation, the data retrieved can be important for managing and preventing forest fires and tracking elements of climate change.
Large forests can provide challenges in terms of accessibility, however, and placing the relevant sensors high up in tall trees can also be dangerous.
Now, a team from Imperial College London’s Aerial Robotics Lab have developed drones that can deploy sensors in a cluttered forest environment via a number of different means.
They can attach the sensors through direct contact while hovering, perch on tree branches to do so, or even fire them into the trees via special darts.
The drones have built-in cameras that help them to identify suitable locations for the sensors.
If required, they can fire a dart over a range of several metres using a smart material that changes shape when it is heated as part of the launching system.
The drone itself can act as a mobile sensor
When perched on tree branches like a bird or giant insect, the drones can even act as sensors themselves, collecting data for as long as they sit there.
At the moment, the drones are controlled by human operatives using the camera view and remote control systems, but the next envisaged step is to make them autonomous.
André Farhina of Imperial College London’s Department of Aeronautics said that there were numerous challenges before the drones could be deployed on their own.
These included striking a balance between human input and the automation that would be required to allow them to adapt to the changing and unpredictable environment of the forest.
Dr Salua Hamaza, a co-author of the research, said that they were looking to introduce new designs and control strategies.
These could involve offloading the onboard computation capabilities using new sensing techniques and smart mechanisms, making the drone itself more agile and energy efficient.
Lead researcher Professor Mirko Kovac said of the drones: “I like to think of them as artificial forest inhabitants who will soon watch over the ecosystem and provide the data we need to protect the environment.”
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