Project description
Flying low for forestry mapping
Drone technology has really taken off. These unmanned aerial vehicles have many uses – from aerial photography to spraying pesticides or scaring away crop-eating birds. For forestry professionals, drone technology can be used to provide accurate forestry mapping. The EU-funded DFD project will develop the first agile, light-weight, autonomous drone to fly in-between the trees. Flying below the canopy provides customers with tools which were previously unavailable: precision analytics, robust classification algorithms and optimised harvesting routes. The DFD technology, which employs artificial intelligence (AI), is expected to provide more data to the front end of the forestry value chain than is currently possible. The project will develop a go-to-market strategy.
Objective
Forestry mapping is key for the economy, yet most of the mapping work is manual today, allowing assessments of only 5-10% of trees. The results of improper forestry mapping range from the inability to react to crisis events such as wildfires or diseases, lower productivity and inaccurate valuations. To solve this problem, many companies have launched mobile phone-based platforms and above canopy LiDAR or photogrammetry, but these products often come with several drawbacks, e.g. they do not provide an accurate understanding of the most desirable forestry characteristics such as wood value (quality) class, species type, volume estimation and bad wood estimates. They are also unable to provide a detailed map of the terrain (boggy areas, small streams, boulders, dead-wood, fallen trees, etc.). These drawbacks cause the existing solutions to become difficult to use and time-consuming, while providing very little added advantage over traditional methods. In turn, this forces companies to create less value and leads to smaller ROI.
Deep Forestry AB built the first agile, light-weight, autonomous drone to fly below the canopy of commercial forests, that is, in-between the trees. Flying below the canopy provides our customers with analytical tools which were previously unavailable: precision analytics, robust classification algorithms, and optimized harvesting routes. They will help companies to cut their costs and increase revenue while mitigating risks and eliminating human error. Our new (Drone + AI) technology will provide more data to the front-end of the forestry value chain than has ever been thought possible.
The key objective of our project is to transform an initial business plan into a robust strategy for international commercialization. With this goal in mind, our Phase 1 project will focus on a more precise market evaluation, assessing technical requirements for further scaling and optimizing our go-to-market strategy.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
740 11 Lanna
Sweden
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.