Project description
Airborne forestry for healthier forests
Forests cover 43 % of Europe’s land area and absorb 10 % of CO2 emissions. Healthier forests are better at carbon sequestration, so forest management practices are important. Forest thinning tops the list for creating a healthy forest. It selectively removes some trees from the forest to improve the health of the remaining trees. Using heavy machinery and manual processing often damage the ecosystem and produce over 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. In this context, the EIC-funded ADATHA project will develop a fossil-free method for harvesting trees using a drone equipped with a lightweight harvesting tool. The system will target trees that are diseased, invasive or at risk of fuelling wildfires and transport the wood directly to the roadside.
Objective
In Europe, forests make up 43% of the continent's land area, covering around 182 million hectares. European forests absorb approximately 10% of the continent’s total CO2 emissions annually, support over 3.6 million jobs and generate around €640 billion annually through forest-based industries.
Forests are most productive if and when trees grow in optimal conditions. Creating such conditions means removing trees that are cluttered, damaged, sick or altogether alien to a forest. This is achieved through forest thinning, an operation that is vital to maintain forest health and productivity and prevent wildfires. Yet today, thinning relies on inefficient old technology. 15-30 t machines cut through the forest, severely damaging the forest floor and ecosystem, emitting a total of 10M t of CO2 by burning diesel, and felling healthy trees to make logging roads (affecting ~20% of the forest ecosystem).
AirForestry is reinventing forestry by enabling the fossil-free thinning of trees from the air. Our solution is a novel combination of a drone and a lightweight wood harvesting tool for grabbing, delimbing and cutting selected trees. We use an electric multi-copter with AI-based visual navigation to locate specific trees (sick, alien, wildfire-vulnerable), cut them and deliver timber to the roadside.
Our innovation will disrupt the tree-thinning market by offering an automated, non-invasive, and sustainable alternative to harmful state-of-the-art methods. Frequent and gentle thinning that we enable allows healthier forests to generate almost 3X commercial value/ha, store ~90 t more CO2/ha, preserve biodiversity and remain beautiful for our children.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences economics and business economics production economics productivity
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering robotics autonomous robots drones
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries forestry
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-EIC-ACC - HORIZON EIC Accelerator
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIC-2024-ACCELERATOR-02
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
753 23 Uppsala
Sweden
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.