Autonomous Drones for Nature Conservation Missions

WildDrone的目标是将野生动物保护实践推向21世纪。由于我们目前面临着历史上全球生物多样性的最大损失，因此比以往任何时候都更需要有效、具有成本效益的保护做法。目前的保护做法通常是非常劳动密集型的，昂贵的，耗时的。收集的数据往往不准确或不完整。然而，无人机技术的最新进展表明，这项技术作为环保主义者的实用工具具有巨大的潜力，它可能会彻底改变我们在自然保护方面的努力。然而，无人机技术仍然是一个发展中的领域，许多障碍阻碍着我们从这一新兴技术中获益。为了充分发挥其在这一新领域的潜力，我们需要发明更强大和可预测的机器人技术，包括收集和解释生态和行为数据的有效和自动化手段。WildDrone将通过加入空中机器人、计算机视觉和野生动物生态学等科学领域来应对这些挑战。该网络建议开发新的自主无人机技术，扩展当前的计算机视觉能力，并将这些进步联合收割机结合起来，创造出用于目视检查和监测野生动物种群的实用工具。这种基于无人机的检查将为保护主义者提供有关动物健康，行为和数量的重要知识。这些挑战将由11个博士（一个自费）解决。一个跨学科的研究培训计划旨在教育新一代博士，并为他们提供一套独特的技能，使他们能够应对我们必须集体解决的巨大挑战，如果我们要扭转全球生物多样性的下降。该计划将提高博士课程的卓越水平，同时提高博士在学术界和工业界的职业前景。

The aim of WildDrone is to push wildlife conservation practices into the 21st century. The need for effective, cost-efficient conservation practices are greater than ever as we currently face the greatest loss of global biodiversity in history. Present conservation practices are typically very labour intensive, costly, and time-consuming. Collected data is often inaccurate or incomplete. However, recent advances in drone technology have shown that this technology has great potential as a practical tool for conservationists and that it could potentially revolutionize our efforts in nature conservation. Nevertheless, drone technology is still a developing field and many obstacles stand in the way of us harvesting the benefits of this emerging technology. To fully achieve its promising potential in this new domain we will need to invent more robust and predictable robotic technologies, including effective and automated means of gathering and interpreting ecological and behavioural data. WildDrone will address these challenges by joining the scientific areas of aerial robotics, computer vision, and wildlife ecology. The network proposes to develop new autonomous drone technology, expand current computer vision capabilities, and combine these advances to create practical tools for visual inspection and monitoring of wildlife populations. This drone-based inspection will provide conservationists with crucial knowledge of animal health, behaviour, and numbers. These challenges will be solved by 11 PhDs (one self-funded). An interdisciplinary research training programme has been designed to educate a new generation of PhDs and provide them with a unique skill set enabling them to tackle the great challenges we must solve collectively, if we are to reverse the decline of global biodiversity. This program will raise the level of excellence in doctoral programs and simultaneously enhance the career perspectives of the PhDs in both academia and industry.