Towards Robotic Environmental Monitoring

Life on Earth is threatened by the effects of pollution and global warming. One million over the eight million species living in forests and oceans on the planet are in danger. The protection and preservation of this biodiversity can be obtained through a continuous monitoring of the ecosystems. However, nowadays environmental monitoring can be performed only by expert humans. Indeed, they only have the specific knowledge to classify plants and habitats and to assess their healthy status. Moreover, their physical intelligence allows them to walk for hours in extremely irregular terrains. Robotics could be an helpful assistant in the process of preserving natural habitats. Yet, real natural environments are still challenging scenarios for robot locomotion. Indeed, there are several issues to be tackled, e.g., unintentional contacts, uneven grounds, and long-lasting missions. This work proposes an approach to realize robotic environmental monitoring.