ChatGPT is the world’s most powerful AI chatbot. It offers a human-like alternative to search engines and can do everything from compile a menu to writing a TV script to explaining quantum physics.In a local NZ newspaper last week, Universities were stressing out on how they’re going to resolve the issue of assignments or essays being produced on demand. Students …

The autonomous planting machine project Autoplant is getting closer to reality. In September 2022 the first test of a complete machine was made in Bräcke, mid-Sweden, close to the Bracke factory where the planting head has been developed and manufactured. The machine works, as you can see in the video below. But it will take a while before it hits …

As part of the just completed ForestTECH 2022 series, advances being made operationally in mechanised planting along with recent commercial trials from across Australasia, Europe and in South America featured as part of the focus this year’s event had on innovations around forest establishment. Economics, health and safety, shortages of manual planters over the planting season and the ability to …

Katam continues to provide global forestry with services for precise decision support and increased wood growth and quality. By using autonomous drones for video recordings, Katam now introduces an additional method for acquiring forest data. A new service offered by Katam Technologies utilises autonomous drones to complement manual measurements of tree trunk diameter. With this new solution, forest owners and …

At the end of last year, we covered a story from Jetson (for those old enough you’ll remember well from your childhood those cartoons in the 1960’s that crossed our screens, the Jetsons), a Swedish company with a mission of making the skies available for everyone with their safe personal electric aerial vehicles. They were flying the vehicle through the …

A unique heavy-lift UAV out of Edinburgh promises to obliterate the power and range of electric drones using a Rotax engine and bent-axis hydraulic motors similar to those used on huge tree harvesters. It’s now lifting 95 kg in testing. Flowcopter promises an extraordinary 900 km of range and more than six hours of endurance, as well as a huge …

In 2021, mobile terrestrial LiDAR data and ground-based measurements were collected across 15 native forest plots in coastal NSW as part of a small pilot program. This remotely sensed LiDAR data provides detailed information about forest structure that can give insight into forest condition and function. The pilot has generated a valuable source of information that could be used to …

Desperate efforts to regenerate Victoria’s towering ash forests, which are being regularly decimated by bushfires, involves a dedicated group searching high and low to bank enough seeds for their survival. An icy wind starts to strengthen on the peak of Mount Wills in north-east Victoria. It’s just another part of the challenging and changing conditions that professional climber Daniel Jenkins …

Airforestry has been in stealth mode since the start of 2020. But now they finally reveal their pioneering technology for forest management. “We have been working in secret for almost two years and already have paying customers among Europe’s largest forest owners. But now it’s time for our public launch. We want to tell you about our concept, which is …

An algorithm guides the drones to avoid collision, fly efficiently and as a team. This is part of an experiment led by scientists from Zhejiang University in China. The drone swarm is the first to successfully fly in an uncontrolled environment.

NASA’s GEDI mission has reached a major milestone with the release of its newest data product, which provides the first near-global estimate of aboveground forest biomass and the carbon it stores—filling a key gap in climate research. The data enables research into how Earth’s forests are changing, what role they play in mitigating climate change, and the regional and global …

Rocket Lab successfully catch falling rocket booster with a helicopter. Rocket Lab has successfully caught one of its Electron rocket boosters, using a helicopter, as it parachuted back towards the Pacific Ocean after launch.But shortly after the capture, the pilot noticed the helicopter was behaving differently than it had in testing, and for safety the booster was dropped into the …

This video is part of the paper, “Design and Testing of a Novel Unoccupied Aircraft System for the Collection of Forest Canopy Samples,” by researchers from the University of Tasmania and Melbourne’s Victoria University. Funding was provided by FWPA and the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment.

As part of the eagerly awaited annual forest technology event, two key presenters from the European forestry giant, Stora Enso Oy will be presenting as part of ForestTECH 2021/22. The company is one of the largest private forest owners in the world with forestry assets valued at more than EUR 7 billion (land and forests). Globally, the company owns or …

Dawn Aerospace has joined the New Zealand Airspace Integration Trials Programme (AITP). The news was announced yesterday by Minister of Research, Science and Innovation, Hon Megan Woods. The AITP’s mission is to: Realise the full potential of New Zealand’s existing regulatory regimes Accelerate the integration of remotely piloted aircraft that enable the development of innovative technologies Support research and development …

It was an interest in trees, not fires that set CFA Deputy Chief Officer Alen Slijepcevic on a path that led him around the world where he is today found leading the bushfire management portfolio of one of the world’s largest volunteer fire services. Along the way, his work has had an enormous impact on the way bushfire risk and …

The past 50 years have seen rapid changes across landscapes, with forests and wetlands alike converted for agricultural use or, conversely, re-afforested due to policy or economic drivers. While official land use maps often exist, they only provide a static, point in time snapshot that quickly becomes dated. This limits their use for agencies responsible for environmental monitoring and protection …

Southern California’s PteroDynamics has somehow escaped our attention thus far, but this company’s radically different take on the electric VTOL aircraft is well worth a look, and the company claims this will be the most efficient design by far. The Transwing is an entirely different concept to anything else in development. It uses a unique (and patented) folding wing design. Propellers …

WISA Woodsat wooden satellite completed a successful stratospheric flight on Saturday 12 June 2021, when a test model of the satellite was sent on a flight from Heureka Science Center at Vantaa, Finland. The main purpose of the test flight was to trial the systems of the satellite and especially assess the crucial boom camera functions. The balloon carrying the …

The DeLeaves canopy sampling tool was designed and developed in a research laboratory specializing in aerial robotics at the University of Sherbrooke, back in 2017. Suspended under an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the sampling tool is self-powered, equipped with an HD camera, and has two robotic arms there to grab and cut foliage samples from trees. In 2018, a first …

A new camera-based fire detection system has been trialed in Tasmania for the first time by forest management company SFM. The Firehawk system provides real time fire detection allowing for a rapid aerial-based response to potentially threatening bushfire ignitions and has been used successfully this fire season on Lenah Estate (formally Norske Skog), a 18,000 Hectare softwood plantation, located in …

Treemetrics, the Cork-based forestry data company, has launched a new remote valuation tool for private forest owners in partnership with Arboreal, an iPhone app developer in Sweden. Enda Keane, Treemetrics’ co-founder and chief executive, said the company had developed technology that combines satellite imagery with mobile data to help forest owners map, value and manage their crop. He said the …

CASA’s drone registration site is now open and if you operate drones for any purpose other than just for fun, you must register them by 28 January 2021. This applies to all drones that you fly to provide any type of service – no matter how much it weighs. Be sure you know about all the drones used in your …

Editors Update: Rocket Lab successfully launched on 28 October 2020 (see a video of the launch below). Planet’s next scheduled launch of Flock 4e’, a total of 9 SuperDoves on Rocket Lab’s Electron, is currently planned for the first half of October and will lift off from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on the Māhia Peninsula in New Zealand. Emerging …

Twelve months ago, ultra-fast charging (UFC) pioneer, StoreDot, achieved a world first with its partner BP by successfully fully-charging a two-wheeled electric vehicle in just 5 minutes. Today, the company is launching its award-winning UFC technology for the drone industry, having achieved its mission of fully-charging a commercial drone in five minutes – another world first. This milestone overcomes two …

Drones have become a valuable asset for the Gisborne District Council. with three machines proving their worth several times over. Use of the drones has grown extensively over the three years since the council got its first machine, says council principal scientist Murry Cave. The three drones are a DJI Phantom 4 Pro, a Mavic and a waterproof one. The …

ForestTECH is this region’s most popular annual independent forestry technology series. This year, in addition to advances being made in remote sensing and forest inventory, for the first time, one of the two days has been set aside to profile the very latest developments in forest establishment, mechanised planting and silviculture. As well as the very latest results and lessons …

A drone “mosaic” of harvested forestry blocks is letting Marlburians see the wood for the trees, and could cut down environmental issues. In New Zealand, Marlborough company GeoInsight Limited is using drones, 360-degree cameras and an e-bike to “stitch together” images of forestry blocks and help the Marlborough District Council streamline compliance checks. Of the council’s 17 monitoring programmes, forestry …

In recent tech events run by the Forest Industry Engineering Association we’ve profiled world leading robotics technologies that are being developed by US-based robotics company, Boston Dynamics. Their “dog-like” Spot robot can now be remotely controlled from anywhere in the world thanks to a partnership with cloud-based software platform Rocos. To demonstrate its new capabilities the US team remotely monitored …

On land north of Toronto that previously burned in a wildfire, drones are hovering over fields and firing seed pods into the ground, planting native pine and spruce trees to help restore habitat for birds. Flash Forest, the Canadian start-up behind the project, plans to use its technology to plant 40,000 trees in the area this month. By the end …

Climate change and catastrophic weather phenomena dominated much of the global headlines in 2019, with devastating reports of earthquakes, hurricanes, and other powerful forces of nature destroying homes and lives. Some of the starkest images were those of raging wildfires that wiped out not only homes but also huge swathes of natural land, from Australia to California and dozens of …

Been wanting to know more about Airborne Hyperspectral Imaging? To appreciate the significance of airborne hyperspectral imaging, Analytik has created an informative video to understand what hyperspectral imaging is, and how it works. Airborne Hyperspectral Imaging (or Remote Sensing) collects and process information across different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum via an aerial vehicle, such as a drone. Hyperspectral Imaging Sensors …

NASA researchers have developed new satellite-based, weekly global maps of soil moisture and groundwater wetness conditions and one to three-month U.S. forecasts of each product. While maps of current dry/wet conditions for the United States have been available since 2012, this is the first time they have been available globally. “The global products are important because there are so few …

In the last few decades, the forestry sector has embraced a range of new precision management tools and techniques to manage forests on a new scale. Precision management is based on the concept that big productivity gains can come from smaller-scale, tailored management techniques. To continue this evolution, the forestry sector will require new technologies for data capture, giving rise …

Startups are capitalising on renewed interest in environmental solutions after Australia’s bushfires brought climate change to the front of investors’ minds.  “We’ve got a problem in front of us. If we don’t act, it will get worse. Where there’s a problem, there’s a market,” co-founder of AirSeed Technologies Andrew Walker said.  Late last year in the Friday Offcuts newsletter, we covered the …

An unmanned aerial vehicle made what is believed to be the world’s first autonomous flight under a forest canopy in Rotorua, New Zealand in late November 2019. Remote sensing scientists from Scion have been working with Emesent, a company who specialises in designing automated systems to collect spatial data in challenging environments, to test out the Hovermap navigation system in …

• UK company Dendra plans to plant 500 billion trees by 2060 – using AI and drones.• The drones can plant 120 seedpods per minute.• The WWF estimates we’re losing 27 football fields of forest every minute due to deforestation. A drone can plant two trees per second, according to UK tech company Dendra, which is aiming to “re-green” the …

Another delivery drone has just buzzed into view, and this one’s a giant. Built by aerospace manufacturer Bell, the Autonomous Pod Transport 70 — or APT 70 for short — is a 180-cm-tall Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft that can carry cargo weighing up to 70 pounds at a top speed of 100 mph. Range comes in at 18 …

Every year, over 250 resource managers, remote sensing, GIS and mapping specialists, inventory foresters and technology providers from throughout Australasia (and more recently SE Asia) meet up at the annual ForestTECH technology series. Since 2007, it’s the one event every year that’s run in both Australia and New Zealand focussing on this particular part of the forestry industry. In a …

Towards the end of last year we covered an article about a Seattle Startup company, DroneSeed that was automating tree planting and spraying operations using drones. Their custom UAV platforms, equipped with multispectral camera arrays, high-end lidar, 23 litre tanks of herbicide and proprietary seed dispersal mechanisms at the time had been hired by several major forest management companies, with …

A shirt with built-in sensors could help reduce fatalities in New Zealand’s forestry industry. Researchers at the University of Waikato are developing a hi-tech way to keep forestry workers safe on the job, with a ‘smart shirt’ the leading contender. Using sensors on the front of the shirt to monitor heart-rate variability and others on the back to measure perspiration, …

A Robinson R22 helicopter was converted by UAVOS to an unmanned drone. UAVOS— which specializes in the design, development and manufacturing of unmanned vehicles and autopilot systems — successfully completed in-air programmed missions with the unmanned helicopter. The first flight this spring of the modernized helicopter lasted more than one hour and was performed in a fully self-piloted mode, reaching an altitude of up …

Amazon has unveiled the latest version of its Prime Air delivery drone, a hybrid aircraft that’s capable of vertical takeoff and landing as well as sustained forward flight. The company says it wants to launch a delivery service using the drone in “the coming months,” but has not said where this might take place or how many customers it might cover. …

A free online platform has just been launched to connect New Zealand businesses with funders, incubators, multinationals and other collaborators. Scale-Up NZ, from Callaghan Innovation, shines a light on our thriving innovation ecosystem.It delivers accurate insights on ambitious, innovative New Zealand companies, removing information gaps that too often prevent our businesses from achieving their potential. The late physicist and entrepreneur …

Google’s parent company has launched a world-first commercial air delivery business in Canberra’s north, delivering gelato and golfing equipment by drone directly to homes. Wing, run by Google’s overarching company Alphabet, has been trialling delivering burritos, coffee and medication by drone in a suburb on the fringes of Canberra for a year. For months, a depot in Canberra’s industrial suburb …

Delair, a leading supplier of commercial drone solutions, has unveiled Delair Aerial Intelligence, a comprehensive platform for converting drone-based images into actionable business insights. The new cloud-based solution provides a complete integrated workflow to manage, analyse and share data, streamlining the process for unlocking the true potential of aerial surveying. Industry-optimised analytics for a wide range of specific industries and …