Robohub.org
 

Tree cavity inspection using drones


by and
13 October 2016



share this:
aerial-image-drone

The importance of conserving biodiversity in forest ecosystems is widely recognized. Tree cavities are home to many animal species, such as birds, mammals and beetles, for shelter, nesting or larval development. However trees with low economic interest, often those with cavities or prone to cavity formation, are routinely removed. Consequently, these cavity-dependent species are now endangered. We need better conservation methods to prevent endangering even more cavity-dependent species.

Effective conservation requires better understanding of tree cavities. However, large-scale studies are rare, and detailed data is costly to collect.

In this work, we focus on woodpeckers’ cavities which are the most common type of cavities. These cavities have an opening of 3-12 cm and a deep hollow inside the tree. We present a system based on Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) equipped with a manipulator to perform inspection and 3D reconstruction of tree cavities. The MAV is equipped with a visual-inertial sensor, a depth camera, and a parallel manipulator with an actuated micro-stereo camera at the end-effector, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: System hardware

Figure 1: System hardware

With limited intervention from the user, the system can detect and track a tree cavity. Upon confirmation by the user through a Graphical User Interface (GUI), the inspection process starts.

The proposed approach has been tested in a lab environment as well as outdoors in real tree cavities.

autonomous-control-drone

More details for this approach can be found in our paper: K. Steich, M. Kamel, P. Beardsley,  M. K. Obrist, R. Siegwart  and T. Lachat, “Tree Cavity Inspection Using Aerial Robots.” (The 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems)

Researchers:

Kelly Steich, Mina Kamel, Paul Beardsley, Martin Obrist, Roland Siegwart and Thibault Lachat.



tags:


Mina Kamel is currently a PhD candidate at the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich.
Mina Kamel is currently a PhD candidate at the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich.

Kelly Steich worked for Disney Research and the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich
Kelly Steich worked for Disney Research and the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich





Related posts :



#IJCAI2025 distinguished paper: Combining MORL with restraining bolts to learn normative behaviour

and   04 Sep 2025
The authors introduce a framework for guiding reinforcement learning agents to comply with social, legal, and ethical norms.

Researchers are teaching robots to walk on Mars from the sand of New Mexico

  02 Sep 2025
Researchers are closer to equipping a dog-like robot to conduct science on the surface of Mars

Engineering fantasy into reality

  26 Aug 2025
PhD student Erik Ballesteros is building “Doc Ock” arms for future astronauts.

RoboCup@Work League: Interview with Christoph Steup

and   22 Aug 2025
Find out more about the RoboCup League focussed on industrial production systems.

Interview with Haimin Hu: Game-theoretic integration of safety, interaction and learning for human-centered autonomy

and   21 Aug 2025
Hear from Haimin in the latest in our series featuring the 2025 AAAI / ACM SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants.

AIhub coffee corner: Agentic AI

  15 Aug 2025
The AIhub coffee corner captures the musings of AI experts over a short conversation.

Interview with Kate Candon: Leveraging explicit and implicit feedback in human-robot interactions

and   25 Jul 2025
Hear from PhD student Kate about her work on human-robot interactions.

#RoboCup2025: social media round-up part 2

  24 Jul 2025
Find out what participants got up to during the second half of RoboCup2025 in Salvador, Brazil.



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence