LB 21-218 - CANCELLED - Using robotic solutions for remote collection of physical samples from various plants and tree species

Background/Question/Methods:

Physical samples from plants and trees or in-situ measurements are essential for many applications, including biodiversity and climate change monitoring, plant propagation for conservation, genetic analyses, or even pest management. Some habitat makes conservation work particularly difficult, forcing scientists, and botanists to use risky and time-consuming methods such as abseiling cliffs, crossing water bodies, or climbing trees to access remote plant populations. In order to collect physical samples, place sensors, or get in-situ measurements anywhere on a given tree or plant, there is a need to develop a new range of robotic tools to interact or get in close proximity to the vegetation.

This poster aims to cover the latest work achieved in Createk Design Lab at the University of Sherbrooke to develop and test a set of new robotic tools specifically designed to be installed under unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). These include a robotic sampler to access the upper canopy, an actively controlled suspended platform to sample all-around a tree or sample plants located on cliffs, the installation of camera/sensors in trees using a suspended platform attached under a UAV, and the lowering of camera/sensors into the canopy.

Results/Conclusions:

This poster will describe how these technologies supported a number of research projects in different ecosystems across North America, leading to the collection of samples from many different species of deciduous, coniferous, and tropical trees as well as small tropical plant species. It will cover results from our latest collaboration with the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) that allowed sampling of 50 m high Douglas Fir, Silver Fir, and Hemlock trees at the Wind River Experimental Forest to help them in monitoring different ecosystems in the United States. It will also cover results from fieldwork with the cliff sampling tool, that has enabled the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) to collect otherwise inaccessible Hawaiian endangered plant species located on cliffs in Kauai.

Preliminary tests to install or lower down cameras in the canopy using an aerial robotic tool will also be discussed. These early tests led to the conclusion that it is hard to install the camera trap with a specific orientation.

The sum of this work highlight the fact that robotic technologies like these have the potential to improve and facilitate the conservation work done in the field of ecology.