Sensor Delivery in Forests with Aerial Robots: A New Paradigm for Environmental Monitoring

Research into remote sensing tools for environmental monitoring is an essential aspect for ensuring a healthy an thriving biosphere under the canopy, but also for preventing forest-related hazards from occurring. The challenges associated with forestry robotics are posed by the environment itself, as forests are widespread areas with a high density of obstacles and complex geometries to navigate in. Multirotors are Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that offer great agility and an unbounded operational workspace within a compact size. These features make their deployment in such wide areas most suitable for depositing wireless sensor networks that provide real-time forest monitoring. Hence, within this paper we propose a novel paradigm to environmental monitoring which exploits UAVs as the carriers of environmental sensors to be deployed in forests. Three different methodologies and systems are hereby presented and discussed for sensor placement tasks, leveraging bespoke design, navigation and control techniques.