Unlocking penguins' secrets with robots | Yvon Le Maho | TEDxAnnecy

New technologies are helping us to explore space. Why not use them to understand the world around us as well? Yvon Le Maho is specifically interested in species on our planet that live in extreme cold: the Antarctic penguins. We still haven't been able to determine how their colonies are structured, how they operate, nor how individuals interact with each other. This is because of the disturbance humans cause when they walk in their midst,. So Yvon had the idea of developing robots to study them, a real challenge since sometimes, a good camouflage is needed for the robot to be truly accepted...

The multitude of innovations developed by animals and plants to adapt in the most varied environments on our planet, often in extreme conditions, fascinates Yvon Le Maho. Now 71 years old, he has traveled around the world to study animals in polar as well as in tropical environments. He has launched two big research programs: one on Antarctic penguins wintering in Adelie Land, about 50 years ago, and the other about 20 years ago in Guyana, on sea turtles. These projects are now followed by his students. Since 1990, he has sought to innovate through new technology that enables us to develop our knowledge on animals in their natural habitat, all while reducing human-induced disturbance.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organised by a local community. Learn more at: http://ted.com/tedx

As you all know, robotics
and artificial intelligence

are on their way to revolutionize
space exploration.

We are only at the beginning.

NASA will soon send this robot to Mars.

It will not only move around
while reporting exceptional images to us,

but it is equipped
with an articulating arm

that will allow us to explore
the origins of life on this planet.

I think and I will demonstrate to you

that robotics can also revolutionize

our approach to life
on our planet this time,

and especially
in these animal populations

that I have studied
since the start of the 1970s.

I am talking about the King Penguin,

in the southern territories
in the Crozet Islands,

which we call "the French Galapagos"
and contains around 25 million seabirds.

So at the core of all studies -

in particular a study
leading us to discover

an anti-microbial molecule
in the stomach of penguins

that enables them to keep
fish intact for three weeks,

at their own body
temperature of 37 degrees ...

Have you ever tried to keep fish at 37°C?

Well, it becomes a terrible
poison after a few days.

... It enables them to preserve
fish for three weeks

and to feed their hatching chicks
if their partner hasn't come back in time.

But I want to talk to you
about another approach,

through these identifications

that consists of following the evolution
of their reproductive success and survival

as indicators of climate change.

To do so obviously, we need a study
with no experimental bias.

But it is impossible to know
if the technique used

to follow them, identify them
and localize them,

if this technique,

due to the inconveniences brought
in the penguins' moves in the water

had any impact.

In any case, it lasted twenty years.

And one day. while reading a TV guide,

I discovered the existence
of this new technique

commonly used today for dogs and cats:

the small chip
that goes under their skin.

It helps vets identify the animal

by placing an antenna
a dozen centimetres away

because the problem,
the limiting factor of this technique

is that identification is done
by using radio frequency

since there is no battery,

and this lack of battery is what makes
it possible to have a chip that small,

about 0.8g for the one we use.

So of course, we began

by deploying those chips
among the penguins,

half of which were already
ringed and the other half were not.

The result was shocking.

We were at the beginning of the 1990s
when we started this work,

and we published it in 2011.

So it took ten years.

Now how did we do it?

We installed antennas
in the earth, at their crossing points.

The first crossing lets us know

whether the animal is coming back
from the sea or leaves it's colony,

the chip being close to the earth
at level with their feet

precisely for it to be
a short distance away.

This way, we can follow thousands
of birds without disturbing them,

except that we equipped a number
of them to study the impact of rings.

The result of this shocking impact due to
the hindrance of the rings when swimming

is that when they go away
for 20 days, for example,

they take on an extra ten days.

This is a very alarming result

because it means that their reproductive
success is lowered by 40%

and their survival by 16%.

That's why we did the cover
of Nature with commentaries ...

You can see here the words
chosen by the editors:

"Marked for life".

In this case of course,

the reproductive success that was
followed by numerous colleagues

around the whole world,
by all the teams including abroad,

all those results were clearly biased.

We can't use reproductive success
as an indicator of climate change

when it is lowered by 40% in ten years.

Today we do without
since we are using chips instead

and, at the moment, we are following
18,000 penguins of different species,

particularly lots of King Penguins,
without disturbing them.

But I wanted to go even further.

My ambition was to understand

how such a colony
of 20,000 couples is structured.

Obviously it's out of the question to have
a human walk in the colony on foot,

to come close to each individual
to see if they have a chip.

So, I had this idea -

which made some
of my colleagues smile who said,

"That's just an early retiree's fad,
it will never work" -

of creating robots to identify them.

I had to prove them whether or not
approaching the penguins with the robot

was likely to cause disturbance,

otherwise it wasn't
worth doing it obviously .

So to do so, we used
these kinds of watches

that are used for jogging.

They measure your heart rate,

and your heart rate is an
excellent indicator of stress.

We compared the change
in their heart rates

when a human approaches them
and when a robot does so.

The approach lasts 30 seconds,
then the human or the robot stops.

The increase in their heart rates
with the robot was relatively low: 16%.

This is exactly the value we see

when penguins pass through
the colony next to brooders,

so a minimal disturbance

since they are defending
their territory, you will see that.

And as soon as the robot stops,

the brooder's heart rate comes back down

to its initial value, its initial
"fluctuation" value we could say.

Now it is quite different
in the case of a human.

You can see that their heart rate
increases much more.

Moreover, it stays
at this very high value

for the entire time the human is there,
even when he stops moving.

And you even have to wait for six
or seven minutes after he's left

for it to get back
to its initial fluctuation value.

It is due to the fact that,
in contrast with the robot's presence,

a human even perfectly still,

creates a reaction
of avoidance in all the penguins.

They retreat with their egg on their feet,
and that destrutures the colony.

So it's an enormous stress.

Imagine in a colony of 20,000 couples,
what that could provoke.

(Video) (Screams of penguins)

We were able to start a study
on this King penguin,

with, as you'll see,
a robot that approaches them

and causes individuals without eggs

and so not defending
their territory to move apart.

In contrast, those who do have eggs -

you can see a curious little one
following... (Laughter)

...as the robot progresses -

those who have eggs
defend their territory

with their beaks and fins.

So this will help us -
and we are starting to do this -

to identify and localize them

within centimetres, thanks
to an extremely advanced GPS,

and to know how the animals
are distributed in the colony,

and so how the colony is structured

depending on their experience
and their age,

and this will allow us
to understand for the first time,

how a colony operates.

I will show you now

that when this robot
is equipped with a camera,

you can easily see
that they defend their territory.

The feeling of it going faster
although it is the same speed

is because the camera is on the robot.

You see, they use their beak -

this is what causes their heart rate
to increase by 16% -

to attack the robot.

Sometimes, it was hard to get through,
so we just built another one.

It took us a year because we're pushing
the boundaries in miniaturization.

This new robot being a little smaller
will be easier to move through.

Let's this robot park itself
near the biologist who is driving it,

and let's move on to the closest
parent of the King penguin

that is the Emperor penguin -

the star of the movie
in "March of the Penguins."

By the way, it is the same colony
in Adelie Land where the film was shot.

There, I encountered a problem.

Why?

Because the Emperor penguin -
as you may have seen in this movie -

doesn't try to defend its territory.

It is an exception in the animal kingdom.

Most animals,
except some species

which just happen
to live in cold regions,

show a behavior of territorial defense.

So, what happens
is that the Emperor penguins,

although a lot more powerful
than the King penguin,

when they notice the robot approaching,

they recoil because they don't have
this territorial defense reflex.

They do the same thing
as the Royal penguins you just saw

on the outskirts of the colony
who moved away when the robot arrived

but did it because
they didn't have any eggs.

Why don't they defend their territory?

In winter, they huddle together.

This is what enables them
to fast for four months.

They halve their speed of emaciation
by huddling together.

And thus - I created some suspense here -

I'm going to show you
the solution we have adopted ...

(Exclamations of surprise) (Laughter)

... by concealing the small
robot in a fake chick.

Now look at the behavior
of the adult and the chick.

Not only do they let the robot come close,

but their movements indicate
that they are singing

to try to communicate with it.

And this little chick
can even be part ...

(Exclamations)

... of a nursery of chicks.

But we wanted to go further.

As a matter of fact,
in the coldest moments in Adelie Land

in some colonies, the temperature
can go down to 50 °C below zero.

For the robot to be autonomous
enough during that period,

we'd need batteries
that are two times its size.

And with a little chick,
we can only hide a small-sized robot.

In addition, the artificial
little chick can only be used

when other little chicks are around.

(Laughter)

So, I gave myself another challenge:

the fabrication of a fake
adult Emperor penguin.

(Laughter)

I had proof that we can fool them,
you're witnesses to this.

But it turned out to be a true
technological challenge.

Making an upright robot
wasn't an option for us

as it would fall over straight away -
we have winds of 150 to 200 km/h.

So the idea was to build
a sliding penguin.

Although you can't hear it,
there is a sound ...

(Slight noise)

There you go! Listen. It is the sound
of the robot sliding on the ice.

We built a first prototype
with a magnificent costume

made by the best experts
in the movie industry -

here you can see the team
of young engineers around me -

a penguin equipped with crawlers

since we must move on ice,
on the pack ice.

We sent it to Adelie Land.

(Laughter)

Now the results have been mixed

because, as you can see,
it arouses curiosity, interest ...

(Laughter)

... from the unemployed penguins.

As for the brooders,
they are still suspicious.

We have two possible explanations.

This magnificent costume, in fact,

does not reflect the image it should

because they see through
the ultraviolet spectrum.

Furthermore, the crawlers
make too much noise.

For two years, we have been
constructing a new robot

that will have real feathers -

we came back with intact corpses
from Adelie Land, found in the colony.

Taxidermists from the museum
are currently preparing the skin.

It will have a real feathering

that will give a true image
in the ultraviolet spectrum.

It will be able to move its fins.

It won't have crawlers.

It will slide on its hull,
as you can see here,

and the noise of the sliding will mask
the noise of the wheels that annoys them.

It will have a speaker because it
will communicate with the real penguins.

You see, while we often oppose
technology and Nature,

here we have an initiative
in which technological development

will allow us to better understand Nature
in order to better protect it .

We are also in the interface
between ethics and science

since it means developing
our scientific knowledge

by reducing the disturbance to animals

that, as you've seen, also reduces
the risks of scientific bias.

Thank you for listening.

(Applause)