Effective conservation practices are urgently needed to monitor wildlife populations and ecosystems impacted by human activity. Advances in technology have enabled large-scale interventions to prevent wildlife population decline, with robotic solutions, such as drones (aerial robots, UAV), proving effective for observation tasks. However, while such robots are extensively used for image data collection, other critical data modalities, like soundscapes and physical samples, remain difficult to gather at the necessary scale. Aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial robots, hold great potentially but currently lack the autonomous capabilities to perform precise sampling across large areas. These robots must be reliable, cost-effective, and able to operate in remote unstructured environments with minimal infrastructure. Developing robust robotic technologies for sample collection is essential for protecting endangered species and ecosystems while minimising risks to humans, wildlife and habitats.

Being a MSCA Doctoral Network project, composed of 11 Main Beneficiaries and 8 Associate Partners, we aim to achieve technical and scientific breakthroughs in nature conservation while training 12 PhD researchers across European and African partners.

PhD outcomes hold high potential for a positive impact on nature conservation and potential economic gains and growth from commercialisation of innovations.

The project is based on three main clusters / themes with the aim to go beyond state-of-the-art and support conservation ecology, in particular with robotics-based sampling and AI-based interpretation methods.

WildBotics will find synergies with its brother project WildDrone, another international training network funded by the EU’s Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions to research and develop the use of drones for wildlife conservation.