The drone, developed by Danish startup Robotto, is designed to track and monitor forest fires in real-time.
Robotto CEO Kenneth Richard Geipel said its drones allow firefighters to get a near real-time view of the situation on the ground, and avoid using fire maps obtained hours or days earlier.
“With our technology, they can get a bird’s eye view of where the fire is, how big the fire is, where the fire is biggest, and then allocate resources,” he explained.
The technology was created in 2018, when the startup’s founders witnessed record-breaking fires in Greece, Sweden and California.
CEO Robottoco Kenneth Richard Giepel. (Facebook/robottoco)
The drone can take off and fly independently. Thermal cameras installed on its body will send data to an artificial intelligence processing unit.
“We train our drones to identify smoke or fire, but we also look for signs of heat. “So, by combining them, we can be sure that what is detected is really a fire,” he commented.
The drone developed by Robotto and Aalborg University can also be used to protect wild animals. By the end of 2023, these drones will be used to identify and monitor vulnerable koalas in Australia and prevent poaching in Uganda.
In Thailand, these drones are used by the environmental organization World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to detect and track roaming herds of elephants and prevent human-wildlife conflict.
“In Thailand, we are mitigating human-wildlife conflict where we see conflict between forest elephants and farmers living nearby. This condition is so severe that 54 percent of the Thai population supports the culling of elephants there. “Actions that could have been avoided,” he added.
Robotto’s drone is currently in the hands of an elite forest firefighting unit in Catalonia, Spain, which is helping to test the technology.
Geipel hopes that what his company produces can be used to tackle forest fires in various parts of the world. But it’s likely Robotto will run into problems considering the European Union prohibits drone flights beyond visual line of sight — something that’s impossible when fires occur. (ab/uh)
