tree-planting robot saves burned land from deforestation by putting seedlings in the ground

Trovador combats deforestation as a tree-planting robot

Meet Trovador, a tree-planting robot that saves and restores burned land from deforestation by placing seedlings in the ground. A project by students Marta Bernardino and Sebastião Mendonça, the autonomous device plants trees on steep terrain that has been burned off. The young engineers propose two prototypes. The first one, which Marta Bernardino introduced in 2023, is a spider-like robot with six legs, each serving a different purpose. The middle legs hold and plant trees, while the back legs have rotating feet that press soil around planted trees. 

The front legs of the tree-planting robot that combats deforestation have sharp tips that grip the ground during movement, and then the middle legs have grippers, shaped like a quadrangular pyramid, on the tibia section. A stepper motor rotates to open and close the gripper, while the middle legs both walk and plant trees. The body has four layers, with the top one holding trees. This prototype can hold up to six trees placed in a box made of egg cartons, and the gripper can reach into this container to pick up trees and plant them in the soil, one by one.

all images courtesy of Marta Bernardino, Sebastião Mendonça, and Trovador

Full-scale version is shaped like a dog with drills

After the first prototype of the tree-planting robot that can save dry and burned lands from deforestation, Marta Bernardino and Sebastião Mendonça are expected to build a dog-shaped version of the project, the final full-scale variant. The upgraded model has legs that allow it to climb steep terrain that other reforestation methods, and even residents, may not access easily. The dog-shaped Trovador is believed to be able to plant around 200 trees per hour on its own. It can adapt to soil conditions in real time using embedded sensors and adjusts how it plants each tree based on these measurements. The tree-planting robot that combats deforestation has drills that make holes in the ground to place the seedlings into these holes, and the motors power the legs and the planting mechanism. It follows a smart pattern that allows it to plant different local species in a randomized sequence.

So far, the young engineers are running a campaign to help themselves build the tree-planting robot and combat deforestation. They plan to use Trovador in Portugal first, their homeland, and then later on, they want to deploy iit in other areas that need reforestation. In their findings, the duo says that since 2000, Portugal has lost more than 50 percent of its forest cover, and in 2024, global forest loss increased by 80 percent, with wildfires causing most of this loss. Because of this, the biodiversity has decreased, erosion has become worse, fire risk has posed a worse concern, and the forests, which could absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, were no longer there. Through the tree-planting robot Trovador, the duo hopes they can save their burned land from deforestation the automated way.

view of the first prototype, which is a spider-like device

the device has a gripper that picks up the seedlings from the egg tray and plants them in the ground

for the full-scale version, the team plans to create a dog-shaped robot

project info:

name: Trovador

engineers: Marta Bernardino, Sebastião Mendonça

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