Biodiversity preservation has become a major challenge of the XXIst century. As part of the nine planetary boundaries, biosphere integrity is one of the most transgressed ones. And yet, we lack knowledge to address the drivers efficiently and correctly. To fill the gap between new emerging technologies and traditional survey methods, GenoRobotics is developing a modular biodiversity monitoring system. The main aim is to enhance current conservation efforts by providing tools to scientists, conservationists and citizens.

Initiated in 2020, GenoRobotics started as a joint project between EPFL alumni and botanists to develop field tools for an expedition in the primary rainforests of Madagascar. GenoRobotics developed a fully portable and automated DNA analysis solution to identify plants. In 2025, we started a new project, with the aim to expand our monitoring toolbox to the scale of an ecosystem.

To capture the complexity of ecosystems, we develop a three layer monitoring system:

• Remote sensing: satellite and drone data to for large scale observations and vegetation identification
• Local sensing: continuous monitoring using microphones, camera and measurements of local environmental parameters.
• eDNA: sampling in water or soil to detect the presence of a single species of high interest or analyse the composition of families.

For each data source, we develop the hardware, software and the protocols that can identify the observed species. The final goal is a dashboard visualising all the collected data and extracted insights to support conservation efforts.