If there are drones that have the battery life to fly ~15km under the tree canopy without hitting any trees or branches, etc, they would also be a great option.
I think the high end consumer drones have range in this ballpark (eg DJI Mavic 2 Pro can go 18km with no wind).
I’m not sure how much tree avoidance would be a problem, I’ve seen some pretty cool demos of autonomous forest drones.
My intuition is that the robot dogs would be slightly more robust since they can self-right if they stumble, whereas if a drone hits a small obstacle it can pretty easily come tumbling out of the air and get stuck on the ground. I think the dogs could also be made more weatherproof than drones.
I bet drones would be a much better option for lightly forested areas or desert areas, though, where they can generally fly above any obstacles.
