By developing a clearing robot for respacing, Skogforsk continues its journey towards remote-controlled and automated forest work. Including money from the Troedsson Foundation, SEK 2.1 million is being invested in a new research project.
Photo: Gösta Lindwall
The project “Clearing/Respacing robot – mechanized clearing with new technology” aims to improve working conditions, reduce costs and increase the quality of clearing work by developing a semi-autonomous clearing robot.
“It adds a new dimension to the project catalogue for our Troëdsson Forestry Teleoperation Lab, a world-class test bed, which we operate in Jälla outside Uppsala. It is gratifying that, in the face of fierce competition, we have been entrusted with driving this groundbreaking development in forestry,” says Gert Andersson, Head of the Operating Systems research programme at the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden.
Great need for clearing/respacing
Clearing/respacing is an important measure in forestry, which increases the production and quality of the trees by shaping the forest stand when it is between two and four meters tall. Despite the fact that around 220,000 hectares of forest are cleared manually every year, the need for clearing is significantly greater.
“By developing a prototype of a semi-autonomous clearing/respacing robot, combined with advanced technology such as image analysis and artificial intelligence, we aim to enable the clearing of a larger proportion of the forest at the right time,” says project manager Linnea Hansson.
The project includes research on tree identification, driving planning and development of the robot itself. Furthermore, the idea is that operators will be able to monitor and control several machines at the same time through remote control and partial automation. This would increase productivity and improve the work environment,” says Anders Nilsson, MSc in Engineering at the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden and responsible for the prototype development of the project.
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“The idea is that the clearing/respacing robots will be part of the chain of precision forestry from seedling to harvestable tree. If the exact coordinate of the planted seedling is known, the clearing robot should be able to clear it so that we ensure that the breeded, planted trees are not cleared away,” says Anders Nilsson.
Development areas in the project “Clearing/respacing robot – mechanized clearing with new technology”:
Identification of clearing and main stems
Methods are being developed to:
- Identify clearing/respacing trunks using AI as well as laser technology (LiDAR) and/or camera technology.
- Find in advance, coordinated, main stems.
The methods are evaluated for accuracy, robustness and cost.
Various
working methods for driving and crane operation are being developed, with a focus on optimal stroke width, stroke length and crane reach. The driving modes include continuous operation with a short crane (the machine does not stop when working) and intermittent operation with a longer crane (the machine stops and clears).
Development and testing of a clearing robot
A suitable, smaller base machine is adapted to a suitable brushcutter and the control system is automated so that the whole becomes a robot. A system to automatically avoid obstacles when clearing is also being developed. Scientific experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance of the clearing robot.
NEW FILM ABOUT SKOGFORSK’S WORK WITH AUTOMATION AND REMOTE CONTROL, WATCH IT HERE:
A future clearing robot is one of several development projects where Skogforsk is in need of a well-functioning, wireless connection. At the test bed in Jälla outside Uppsala, Troëdsson Forestry Teleoperation Lab, we develop automation and remote control of forest work. The work, and how we view the development, is described in a film made by Fujitsu. Fujitsu is one of our partners in this area of development
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