Robot swings its way to unexplored treetops

It abseils from a height and swings around obstacles: robot Avocado will one day manoeuvre through the canopy of the rainforest and collect data for researchers about this hard-to-reach habitat. It's called Avocado and does actually look a bit like one: currently being developed by researcher on, the innovative robot has a robust housing similar in shape to the green fruit. Concealed within it is the technology that will enable the robot to navigate through the treetops autonomously. Avocado is one of the latest inventions in the field of environmental robotics. "The idea behind this area of research is to get robots out of the factories and use them outdoors for environmental research," explains Steffen Kirchgeorg, a doctoral candidate at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research in Birmensdorf. Especially in tropical rainforests - the world's most biodiverse habitats - it's in the dense canopy that the greatest number of living organisms are active. Exploring these habitats is extremely difficult: climbing the trees only allows research teams to collect data selectively.