This paper presents an aerial-ground field robotic team, designed to collect and transport soil and biota samples in estuarine mudflats. The robotic system has been devised so that its sampling and storage capabilities are suited for radionuclides and heavy metals environmental monitoring. Automating these time-consuming and physically demanding tasks is expected to positively impact both their scope and frequency. The success of an environmental monitoring study heavily depends on the statistical significance and accuracy of the sampling procedures, which most often require frequent human intervention. The bird's-eye view provided by the aerial vehicle aims at supporting remote mission specification and execution monitoring. This paper also proposes a preliminary experimental protocol tailored to exploit the capabilities o↵ered by the robotic system. Preliminary field trials in real estuarine mudflats show the ability of the robotic system to successfully extract and transport soil samples for o✏ine analysis.
This paper presents a robotic team suited for bottom sediment sampling and retrieval in mudflats, targeting environmental monitoring tasks. The robotic team encompasses a four-wheel-steering ground vehicle, equipped with a drilling tool designed to be able to retain wet soil, and a multi-rotor aerial vehicle for dynamic aerial imagery acquisition. On-demand aerial imagery, properly fused on an aerial mosaic, is used by remote human operators for specifying the robotic mission and supervising its execution. This is crucial for the success of an environmental monitoring study, as often it depends on human expertise to ensure the statistical significance and accuracy of the sampling procedures. Although the literature is rich on environmental monitoring sampling procedures, in mudflats, there is a gap as regards including robotic elements. This paper closes this gap by also proposing a preliminary experimental protocol tailored to exploit the capabilities offered by the robotic system. Field trials in the south bank of the river Tagus’ estuary show the ability of the robotic system to successfully extract and transport bottom sediment samples for offline analysis. The results also show the efficiency of the extraction and the benefits when compared to (conventional) human-based sampling.
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