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Deep Forestry Drones - revolutionising forestry mapping and analysis with artificial intelligence

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 (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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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.

SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020

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Coordinator

DEEP FORESTRY AB
Net EU contribution

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.

€ 50 000,00
Address
KALLE BLANKS VAG 1
740 11 Lanna
Sweden

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Östra Sverige Östra Mellansverige Uppsala län
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

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.

€ 71 429,00
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