Drones for eDNA Sampling & Biodiversity Monitoring | Stefano Mintchev | AI + Environment Summit 2026

Keynote by Prof. Dr. Stefano Mintchev (Incoming Professor, University of Bonn; ETH Zurich) at the AI + Environment Summit 2026: how bio-inspired drones and robots collect environmental DNA (eDNA) to monitor biodiversity in places humans cannot see, hear, or reach. Recorded 30 September 2026 at Innovationspark Zürich, Dübendorf, Switzerland. Q&A included. About 1 million species are threatened with extinction, and the most species-rich places are usually the hardest to reach. This talk presents environmental robotics as an answer to that measurement problem: • eDNA sampling by drone: a haptic control strategy lets the drone collect eDNA by lightly touching branches; swabs dropped through all canopy layers; stream water as a natural eDNA collector • XPRIZE Rainforest: remote, multi-layer species mapping of a rainforest patch (around 400 organisms detected from eDNA, 54 assigned to species), bonus prize won out of 330 teams for work developed jointly with local indigenous teams • Canopy rafts: insect traps dropped on the canopy by drone and retrieved later • Early detection of invasive pests in vineyards: eDNA detects infestations about 4 weeks before visible symptoms (now continued in the PhenoRob cluster of excellence, Bonn) • Robots adapted to nature: the Tactile Optical Caged Aircraft (TOCA) that flies by feel, and FlexiQuad, a fully flexible quadrotor about 1000x softer than rigid drones that squeezes through narrow gaps Theme of the session: Drone Applications for Environmental Monitoring and Conservation. Recording note: Zoom recording of the slides with the speaker's video where available. The introduction is not included; the Q&A is. The AI + Environment Summit is a full-day summit to inspire, ignite and innovate work in AI for the environment, organised by PhD fellows and postdoctoral researchers from ETH AI Center, EPFL, UZH and other institutions. It is run by a registered Swiss non-profit. Website: https://ai-environment-summit.com/ LinkedIn:   / ai-environment-summit-zurich   Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ai-env-summi... Contact: contact@aiesummit.com Chapters: 00:00 Biodiversity monitoring has a measurement problem 03:31 Bio-inspired drones: folding wings, collision resilience, perching 06:11 Environmental DNA (eDNA) and how drones collect it 11:02 XPRIZE Rainforest: the eProbe, water sampling, 400 organisms detected 19:32 Canopy rafts: stationary sensing deployed by drone 26:23 From rainforest to agriculture: eDNA for early pest detection 32:08 Flying inside the canopy: drones that fly by feel (TOCA) 33:58 FlexiQuad: a robot 1,000 times softer than rigid drones 35:30 Open positions in Bonn and conclusion 37:21 Q&A Thumbnail artwork: XK Studio & Google DeepMind / Better Images of AI (https://betterimagesofai.org), CC BY 4.0. #Biodiversity #Drones #eDNA #Robotics #AIForEnvironment #EnvironmentalMonitoring #AIEnvironmentSummit