ANYmal C Is the quadrupedal robot used by the NI team for the habitat monitoring missions. At the core, powerful torque-controllable actuators have been designed to carry the robot over steep stairs. LIDAR and depth cameras provide a 360-degree high precision view of the robot’s environment. Teleoperation is simplified by integrated wide-angle cameras and an industrial-grade remote control. Three Intel i7 Hexa-core processors deliver the computation power for advanced locomotion control, real-time mapping, autonomous navigation, and for sophisticated on-board custom applications. The robot is dustproof IP67 design. ANYmal C carries up to 10 kg in payload, and can provide two hours of operations on a single battery charge.

Software has been developed to conduct autonomous missions. In this way the robot is able to replicate the monitoring mission conducted in the field by botanists. Our ANYmal C is able to move in the natural environment and collect data autonomously.

We have developed a pipeline to estimate the biomass of a bush. Starting from a point cloud we are able to estimate the perimeter and height of a plant.

Starting from a photo taken autonomously by the robot we are able to estimate the percentage of plants compared to the ground.

In this case the goal is to count the number of trees in a certain area and then evaluate the perimeter and height of each tree. Starting from a point cloud, we approximate the plane with a curve-fitting approach and cut the point cloud at a certain height. Then we use clustering algorithm to identify the tree and finally evaluate the perimeter and height.

Starting from a video autonomously taken by the robot, we use the AI algorithm to detect plants useful for understanding the health status of a habitat.