An Australian mining group has advanced the future of mobility (in mining at least) with the deployment of a fleet of fully-autonomous Ford Rangers at one of its mines.

Fortescue Metals Group has retrofitted four Rangers at its Christmas Creek mine in Western Australia with autonomous systems created by the company’s Technology and Automation team, to remove the need for fitters to make around 12,000 28-kilometre round trips each year to collect equipment and parts.

Of course, it’s not quite as ground-breaking as it sounds: mining operations don’t need to deal with road rules, pedestrians or many other vehicles, which hugely complicate the matter. Nevertheless, it’s still impressive.

The system uses a combination of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and radar sensors for obstacle detection and avoidance, along with a comprehensive safety management system with fail-safe braking and vehicle-wide monitoring and fault response capability.

A successful deployment of ALV’s (autonomous light vehicles) at Christmas Creek will provide the opportunity to implement a similar system at other operational sites to improve safety, productivity and efficiency.

Check here for the full story (Stuff)

Image credit: Ford Australia

Skydio, the leading U.S. drone manufacturer and world leader in autonomous flight, today announced that Skydio X2 has received the CES® 2021 Best of Innovation Award for Drones and Unmanned Systems. The announcement was made ahead of the first-ever, all-digital CES 2021, the world’s most influential technology event, happening Jan. 11–14, 2021.

The CES Innovation Awards program, owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)®, is an annual competition honoring outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products across 28 product categories. An elite panel of industry expert judges, including members of the media, designers, engineers and more, reviewed submissions based on innovation, engineering and functionality, aesthetic and design.

Skydio X2 is the company’s new autonomous drone for enterprise and public sector customers. Skydio X2 pairs Skydio Autonomy, an AI-driven system that gives drones the skills of an expert pilot, with a foldable, highly portable airframe that leverages hyper-strength composites to withstand the most demanding environments. X2 mounts a dual 12MP color optical plus 320×256 FLIR® thermal sensor, and is equipped with GPS-based night flight and strobe lighting, making it ready for both day and night operations, while providing up to 35 min of flight time on a single battery. X2 provides the ultimate aerial data collection solution for situational awareness, asset inspection, and security patrol. Skydio X2 is designed, assembled, and supported in the USA and it is NDAA compliant providing a higher degree of supply chain security.

“We are excited and honored to receive the CES 2021 Best of Innovation Award for the X2. This award is a testament to our forward-thinking vision for autonomous drones and to the incredible work of our engineering team. The X2 delivers groundbreaking intelligence and robustness that allows professional pilots to get the job done faster, more accurately and with greater peace of mind,” said Adam Bry, CEO of Skydio. “Our goal is to make drones easier and safer to use than ever, while opening up entirely new use cases based on autonomous flight.”

The CES 2021 Innovation Awards Honorees, including product descriptions and photos, can be found at CES.tech/innovation.

About Skydio:

Skydio is the leading U.S. drone manufacturer and world leader in autonomous flight. Skydio leverages breakthrough AI to create the world’s most intelligent flying machines for use by consumers, enterprises, and government customers. Founded in 2014, Skydio is made up of leading experts in AI, robotics, cameras, and electric vehicles from top companies, research labs, and universities from around the world. Skydio designs, assembles, and supports its products in the U.S. from its headquarters in Redwood City, CA, to offer the highest standards of supply chain and manufacturing security. Skydio is trusted by leading enterprises across a wide range of industry sectors and is backed by top investors and strategic partners including Andreessen Horowitz, Levitate Capital, Next47, IVP, Playground, and NVIDIA.

Contacts:

Aircover Communications: Morgan Mason, skydioteam@aircoverpr.com

Source and image credit: Skydio

Lidar technology is synonymous with 3D point clouds. What are the latest trends for the four most popular Lidar platforms, and how are the developments benefiting end users of the point cloud data?

Within the spatial industry there are four popular platforms for producing point clouds: 1) Airborne Lidar which captures data from above using aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or ‘drones’), 2) Mobile Lidar mounted on moving vehicles including road, rail and boats, 3) Terrestrial Lidar captured from a static platform typically using a tripod, and 4) Handheld, short-range Lidar using SLAM technology.

Each platform plays an important role in generating Lidar-captured point clouds and each one offers a unique perspective on the world – from airborne which can be captured at scale across cities to handheld SLAM for rapidly capturing detail within indoor spaces.

Click here for the full story (GIM International)

Image Credit: GIM International

Humans and computers generated more than 64 zettabytes of data in 2020 – that’s the equivalent of 6.4 trillion gigabytes or simply put, more images or videos than the average person takes in their lifetime. Such a massive figure not only reflects what IDC calls ‘unusually high’ growth of data as people lived and worked almost entirely home, but it also poses one important question: Where is all that data stored?

IDC figures show that less than 2% of this data was saved or retained into 2021. That means that most data was essentially created to be consumed, or cached and overwritten with new data. IDC Global DataSphere senior vice president Dave Reinsel says that the impact of data generation from 2020 will be felt for several years – and the important takeaway is that storage is going to be a major issue.

“The amount of digital data created over the next five years will be greater than twice the amount of data created since the advent of digital storage. The question is: How much of it should be stored?”

Click here for source (IT Brief)

Image Credit: IT Brief

UNSW Canberra Space’s M2 CubeSat satellites successfully launched with Rocket Lab’s ‘They Go Up So Fast’ mission from New Zealand earlier today, representing a significant step forward in Australia’s sovereign space capabilities.

The M2 mission, a collaboration between UNSW Canberra Space and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), brings together emerging technologies that deliver advanced capabilities in Earth observation, maritime surveillance, and satellite communications.

UNSW Canberra Space Director Professor Russell Boyce said M2 will deliver world-leading CubeSat technologies including formation flying, where the craft is able to split into two separate satellites (M2- A and M2-B) and fly in sequence, enabling significant mission flexibility.

Supporting Australia’s space situational awareness, the data captured by M2 can inform maritime surveillance, weather observations and low-orbit satellite traffic. This information is processed through advanced in-orbit artificial intelligence, on a platform reconfigurable throughout the mission.

“The M2 mission is one of the most complex CubeSat programs ever attempted. It will enable both UNSW Canberra Space and the RAAF to gain experience and capability in the development and operation of in-orbit space science and technology missions,” Professor Boyce said.

The M2 mission will play a role in expanding the Australian space industry, which is integral to solving the challenges the country will face in the future.

“As we depend on space infrastructure for resource management, secure communications and data collection during extreme weather events and bushfires, building our sovereign space capabilities is critical for Australian security,” Professor Boyce said.  

Air Vice-Marshal Cath Roberts, Head of Air Force Capability said the M2 mission is incredibly exciting as it’s the first time the RAAF has used formation flying in CubeSats.

“The two satellites will be able to communicate with each other, as well as ground stations back here on Earth, giving better quality data, with greater detail and less lag time – all fundamentally important for Australia’s defence. This innovative home-grown approach has been designed to meet Australia’s unique requirements for sovereign space capability,” Air Vice-Marshal Cath Roberts said.

UNSW Canberra Space’s Spacecraft Project Lead Andrin Tomaschett said the M2 mission was almost entirely designed and built in Australia, supported by optical telescopes developed for the mission by Aperture Optical Sciences Inc. of Connecticut, US.

At home, the mission is supported by a domestic supply chain of some 30 companies. This, combined with three spin-off companies from UNSW Canberra Space to date, is an indicator of the significant impact that targeted investment in the research sector can have on building the nation’s space industry.

“The M2 mission is our most complex yet and it’s great to be launching again with Rocket Lab,” Mr Tomaschett said.

“M2 comprises two connected spacecraft that will separate on-orbit to engage in formation flying, followed by a multitude of radio frequency, imaging and laser experiments.”

It follows in the footsteps of the M2 Pathfinder Mission, which launched with Rocket Lab in June 2020 and delivered various risk mitigation exercises for the team’s technologies ahead of the launch of M2.

“The M2 Pathfinder successfully tested various in-house technologies, including on-board computing, attitude control, GPS, optical imaging, communications and flight software,” Mr Tomaschett said.

The space missions will also deliver research and educational outcomes for Defence and civilian students studying engineering at UNSW Canberra, strengthening Australia’s future space workforce.

Source and Image Credit: UNSW Canberra

Through a combination of predictive algorithms, prescriptive optimization-based modelling, and a live operational planning system, artificial intelligence (AI) can enable continuous improvement throughout the forestry supply chain and provide real competitive advantage in fast-changing markets.

Global industries are benefiting from a confluence of improved data acquisition and management platforms and advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For the forest industry, this provides an exciting and transformational opportunity.

As more data comes in from systems at many points in the supply chain, forest companies can mine this information for valuable insights into their operations and use it to improve their planning processes and assumptions by learning from what is actually happening in the field. This is where predictive analytics and prescriptive modeling can work together to provide continuous improvement in forest planning and allow forest companies to make faster, smarter and more precise decisions based on continuously updated data.

More >>

Margules Groome, on behalf of the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI), are currently undertaking the 2020 update to the New Zealand wood availability forecasts (WAF). These forecasts build on the National Exotic Forest Description (NEFD) data, provided by New Zealand plantation forest owners, to predict the potential wood availability at both national and regional levels. These forecasts are carried out roughly once every 5 years, with the last WAF published in 2014-2015.

Late in 2020, Margules Groome developed the forecasts for the Nelson Marlborough wood supply region as a pilot exercise. With the successful completion of this pilot region, they are now moving on to the forecasts for the remaining regions and the national level forecasts. The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of June 2021. All regions follow a similar methodology to that which has been used for the last couple of forecasts.

The NEFD areas statements and yield tables form the basis for the Remsoft Woodstock wood flow models. The models are designed to mimic generalised future forest management practices in each of the regions. These generalised practices include rotation ages and replanting rules. They are undertaking a survey of large forest owners to obtain an understanding of their harvesting intentions over the next 10-20 years.

These harvest intentions will be used to provide a solid base for the future predictions. Several different scenarios will be modelled to demonstrate different potential future supply forecasts for each region. Once the draft models are completed, regional meetings will be held to canvas feedback on the draft forecasts. A regional meeting with forest owners in the Otago and Southland regions was held alongside the Southern Wood Council meeting on Wednesday this week. Feedback will be incorporated into the final models and forecasts. The final forecasts will be made publicly available on the MPI website.

If you own forests in New Zealand of greater than 3 000 hectares, you or your forest manager can expect to be contacted by a Margules Groome representative to help us understand your harvesting intentions over the next 10-20 years. In addition, all New Zealand plantation owners should receive an invitation over the next couple of months to a regional meeting (likely to be in March) to discuss your regional draft forecasts. If you haven’t been contacted and think you should have been, please don’t hesitate to get in touch: info@margulesgroome.com

Source: Margules Groome

Fortunately, a full series of technology events and shows are being planned in Australasia by the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA). A full list of events can be found on the FIEA website.

This week, Rotorua hosted the annual MobileTECH Ag 2021 event and in just three weeks’ time, forest managers and harvesting contractors will be coming into Rotorua for the two large events, HarvestTECH 2021 and Forest Safety & Technology 2021. A full programme at this stage is being planned with the first event for some time running in Melbourne, Australia, as part of the WoodTECH 2021 in early August. Further details will follow.

But what about the major international forestry trade shows?

2020 was the year when almost all major international forestry shows postponed to 2021, creating a complicated situation for the shows that were originally planned for 2021. Now we are in 2021, and some shows have already moved to 2022, like the former No 1 Elmia Wood. What will happen to the other ones?

The international forestry shows in 2021

The German show KWF Tagung/KWF Expo was planned for July 2020 but postponed to the same time 2021. They are, so far, the only show that has declared that they will go ahead this year. What about the other shows? Here is a summary:

Ligna 2021

Ligna 2021, in Hannover Germany, was originally planned for May 2021. It was postponed to 27th September to 1st October 2021. It is, however, unclear what will happen to the forestry part of the show. Ligna is mainly a trade fair for sawmill- and woodworking machinery, the largest in the World in this business. The forestry part has been a quite small, but important, outdoor activity of the fair. For suppliers of forestry equipment, the Ligna show is important as it attracts industry visitors, decision makers that decide about investments both for industry and forestry. This exclusive group rarely visit the pure forestry shows like Elmia Wood, KWF Expo or the Interforst.

As KWF was postponed to this year it seems that most forestry exhibitors will choose to participate at KWF only, and not at Ligna. That can however change before September.

The Swedish shows

Elmia Wood and the new show Swedish Forestry Expo were both planned for spring 2021 but postponed to 2022. New dates for Elmia Wood will be 2nd to 4th June and for Swedish Forestry Expo 28thto 30th April 2022.

Forexpo in France

According to their homepage, Forexpo will go ahead on their new dates 16th to 18th June 2021. The location is the old one in Mimizan south of Bordeaux.

KWF in Germany

As mentioned above, the KWF show will go ahead on the new dates 30th June to 3rd July 2021 with some changes due to Covid -19. The congress will take place the week before on the Internet. No large halls will be used this time. Instead, the exhibitors that normally have their stands in the halls will have small stands along the trails. The trails themselves will be made wider, and the distance between the stands will be increased to make it easier for everyone present to keep safe distances.

DEMO International in Canada

The DEMO International was planned for September 2020 but postponed until 16th to 18thSeptember 2021. The venue will be the same, Ottawa/Gatineau.

AUStimber 2021 in Australia

After several cancellations from bushfires and COVID-19, the AUStimber 2021 event is planned to run on 10-13 November. Further details can be found on the AUStimber website.

Will it ever be normal again?

Well, another year with uncertainty is what we can expect. Above are only the major shows mentioned. There are several small and local shows that also have had to change their plans due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some even went bankruptcy and will most likely never start up again.

The current situation has taught companies how to market themselves in other ways than on the fairs. How will that affect the fair business? Will the international forestry fairs/shows be needed in the future? I certainly think so. Not only because I was active within the forestry show business in a previous life, but because I think that the need to meet will still be there. Maybe even more than ever now when we haven´t had any shows in a long time.

Customers and suppliers want to meet and forestry people in general wants to meet each other. So, I am quite sure that the shows will go on, but I don´t know exactly how or when.

Source: forestry.com

DroneSeed, the innovative drone planting company that has presented at the last two ForestTECH events and has undertaken operational trials in forests a number of local locations, has been recognised by Fast Company as one of the Most Innovative Companies in Robotics in 2021.DRONESEED – For replanting fire-ravaged forests

We’ve just seen the worst wildfire season on record in the United States, resulting in more than 8 million acres of land burned. On average, the world loses 18.8 million acres of forest to fires every year. Getting all that forest replanted and back to converting carbon dioxide is crucial to the environment, but in practice, it’s a costly and slow process.

Seattle-based DroneSeed uses swarms of large, proprietary drones to carry seeds to burned areas and plant them in spots where they’re most likely to grow well. The seeds are delivered in “vessels” designed to keep the seed hydrated and protected from animals. The company says that it’s seen its contracts jump well into the six figures this year, and it’s now working with the Nature Conservancy and three of the five largest timber companies.

More >>

Source: Fastcompany.com

Welcome to the latest issue of Foresttech.News.

We have a bunch of new stories this month. The first story can be seen as both a positive and a negative. NZTech has been a leader in promoting and developing the New Zealand technology sector. Through the Digital Skills Forum, they highlight that, while there has been a massive growth in digital business investments, demand for labour with the right digital skills is outstripping supply.

By 2025, over 149 million new digital technology jobs are expected to be created worldwide. New Zealand and Australia need to act now in order to improve the skill sets coming through our education system and aim to work on attracting the right personnel into the market.

This month we take a closer look at another couple of recent autonomous tree-planting projects on the go. A number of these were highlighted at the last ForestTECH 2020 event, which covered new technology from around the globe and local operational trials on large-scale mechanised tree planting.

In Sweden the forestry industry and researchers are investing EURO €2 million into the development of a new autonomous planting system they’ve called, Autoplant. Bracke Forest, who presented at ForestTECH 2020 on their mechanised planting equipment, will be laying a key role in this new project. And another robotics manufacturer in Europe, which started off building autonomous tanks, is also trialling planting trees from driverless (robotic tree planting) ground vehicles.

And finally, we have a call to arms by a PhD student at Melbourne’s RMIT University. A short, anonymous survey is being undertaken on the current requirements and challenges associated with the collection of forest inventory and opportunities that low-cost 3D imaging technologies may present. It’s hoped that the information collected can contribute to the development of a 3D imaging sensor assessment framework for consumer-grade low-cost technologies. If able to help, check out the story below.

Remember, you can also send through any contributions, stories or links that we can pass onto the wider community. 

Stories this issue:

• Starlink’s new satellite broadband service pricing revealed for NZ and AU
• Euro $2m to develop autonomous planting machine
• Input requested to forest inventory metrics survey
• From tanks to robotic tree planters
• Fresh insights from new global forest carbon maps
• Bushfire prediction tech to help emergency response
• New satellite data partnership between UP42 and CatConnect 60
• NZ tech sector struggling to get enough staff
• Trimble Forestry Announces Integration of LIMS and CFX

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to this email newsletter.

Starlink is a much-anticipated satellite internet service scheduled to launch for New Zealand and Australian customers later this year. Its aim is to bring affordable, broadband-equivalent data speeds to anyone, no matter where they are located around the world. This could be a game-changer for rural industries like forestry.

The service, backed by Elon Musk, is provided through thousands of interlinked satellites orbiting the earth at just 550 kilometres from the ground.

Pricing for Australia is A$139 a month with no data caps and speeds between 50 to 150 Mbps. Latency is also low, between 20 to 40 milliseconds. The hardware costs A$709 plus shipping. For New Zealand, costs are NZ$159 per month and NZ$799 plus shipping.

There is a good write up about the early signups in Australia on ABC. Further details can also be found at IT News.

Connectivity has always been an issue for the forestry sector. Access to faster, more reliable real-time data would go a long way to maximise the benefits of technologies like AI, IoT and UAVs.

Image Credit: SpaceX

Vinnova, Sweden’s Innovation Agency, together with the forest industry and researchers, invests 20 million SEK (approx. 2 million EURO) on development of an autonomous planting system, the Autoplant. The project is expected to improve forest planting with regard to precision, environmental impact and working environment.

Autoplant is the second step in a research program that aims to solve societal challenges through collaborative projects that contribute to the sustainability goals in Agenda 2030. “As it is difficult to find labour for manual planting, and machine operators in the forest suffer from vibrations, we believe that an autonomous, small planting machine is the way ahead.” says Linnea Hansson, Project Manager at Skogforsk (Swedish Forestry Research Institute)

Autoplant addresses a series of challenges that connects to the sustainability goals in Agenda 2030:

• The climate challenge . Autoplant contributes to that new forest is established faster through better planting spots, higher survival rate and more energy efficient machines.
• The environmental challenge. There will be less soil impact as less area is scarified.
• The working environment challenge. Autonomous machines will do the hard job, and no operators have to sit in the machine as in today’s scarifiers.
• The labour– and equality challenge. Autonomous machines, that in the future could be controlled from cities, could attract new groups of labour and make family life easier.

The initiative comes from SCA who wants to increase the survival rate among plants and secure an efficient forest rejuvenation. “This would also contribute to Sweden’s competitiveness and good reputation for Swedish forest technology,” says Magnus Bergman, responsible for technique and digitalization at SCA Skog.

Bracke Forest, who is a manufacturer of equipment for reforestation, will have a key role in the project. “This is a good opportunity to develop cutting-edge technology in close cooperation with researchers and users. We have a long history within scarifying and mechanized planting, and we see this project as part of securing our product range for the future”, says Klas-Håkan Ljungberg, CEO at Bracke Forest.

Photo: A vision of an autonomous planting machine, Skogforsk

Source: forestry.com

Invitation for a short survey for academic research surrounding forest inventory metrics and capture.

RMIT University, located in Melbourne Australia, is currently conducting a short, anonymous survey surrounding the current requirements and challenges associated with the collection of forest inventory and the opportunities that low-cost 3D imaging technologies may present.

It is hoped that this survey will be able to provide insight into the different collection methodologies associated with forest inventory in different stand conditions and management types as well as rating the importance of different metrics and the maximum possible error associated with a measurement for it to still be considered reliable.

This information will contribute to the development of a 3D imaging sensor assessment framework for consumer grade low-cost technologies. If anyone else is interested in contributing to this research you can forward this project description/link on or forward your contact details through to s3654201@student.rmit.edu.au (James’s University email address).

The survey can be found at the following link.

Further information surrounding this project, your role and rights as a participant and how the survey results will be used can be found here.

Source: James McGlade, RMIT PhD Student

Image Credit: Sean Krisanski

Robots help us in many ways – from assembly lines to looking after the elderly. Now they’re turning their attention to combating climate change by helping to plant trees.

Milrem Robotics, an Estonian company which started off building autonomous tanks, has developed an autonomous robot forester that can plant and nurture young trees. The new robot planter carries up to 300 seedlings and can plant a hectare of forest in less than six hours.

Although the robot forester is primarily designed for working in commercial forests, the designers say they believe it could be used to restore natural forests too.

The robotic planters are equipped with Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) which uses laser pulses to build up a three-dimensional image of the robots’ surroundings and global positioning (GPS) to navigate precisely across the terrain.

The position of each sapling is logged in a database as it is planted, which means that a specialized brush-cutter version of the robot forester can cut back competing growth without harming the young trees. Makers Milrem Robotics say their robot vehicles can also be used to prepare the ground for planting by towing ploughs.

The robots were developed in partnership with the University of Tartu, Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) and the Estonian University of Life Sciences and the project has been backed by a $2.4 million grant from the European Union.

Photo: Milrem Robotics, Mock ups of robotic forester designs

Forests are crucial for global efforts to prevent dangerous climate change. As the global community works out what to prioritize in this quest against catastrophe, figuring out which forests are gaining and losing carbon – and why – is an important piece of the puzzle.

Until now, however, data on carbon gains and losses in global forests has been piecemeal and variable, and that has serious implications for land-use decision making – from local to international scales. “I think a lot of the decisions that are taken within the [U.N.] Paris Agreement [on climate change] depend on incomplete data sets, because they come from national greenhouse-gas inventories, which are frequently incomplete,” said Rosa Roman-Cuesta, an associate researcher at the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), in an interview.

“Many countries do not report all their forest activities nor all their carbon pools. This leads to an inconsistency between what countries report and what global modelling and atmospheric observation offer – It is our role as scientists to help to bridge this gap towards the UNFCCC global stocktake in 2023.”

Roman-Cuesta and a team of scientists from CIFOR, NASA Goddard, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, The Sustainability Consortium, University of Maryland, Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Woodwell Climate Research Center and World Resources Institute (WRI), hope to address that discrepancy with a ground-breaking global set of forest carbon flux maps, which have just been released in the journal Nature Climate Change and made publicly availableon the Global Forest Watch website. “We now have eyes everywhere to monitor changes of forest cover and carbon stocks globally,” said Sassan Saatchi, principal scientist for Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab and a co-author of the research, in a press release.

The team used a combination of ground measurements and satellite observations to obtain the first globally-consistent data set for forest carbon flux estimation over the years from 2000 to 2019. The data takes into account the full carbon pool provided by each forest, including above- and below-ground biomass, debris and soil carbon. “This paper, with whatever flaws it may have, offers comparable, complete and consistent data across all forest biomes of the planet and I think that provides valuable new insights on where hotspots for action are in forests worldwide,” said Roman-Cuesta.

“[This is] something that we in the forest remote-sensing community have been working towards for many years, but was a big scientific and computational challenge until now,” said Martin Herold, another co-author and a professor of geo-information science and remote sensing at WUR. “It’s the most up-to-date and detailed map of its kind ever produced — in that sense a really important global contribution in terms of better information on the forest carbon cycle, and on the functioning of forests and their interactions with the climate.”

The researchers found that the world’s forests absorbed twice as much carbon as they released each year. Carbon release was caused chiefly by deforestation and degradation. “Forests act as a two-lane highway in the climate system,” said Nancy Harris, co-author and research director at WRI, in the press release. “Standing forests absorb carbon, but clearing forests releases it into the atmosphere. A detailed view of where both sides are occurring – forest emissions and forest removals – adds transparency to monitoring forest-related climate policies.”

More >>

Source: cifor.org

Australia will develop a nationally consistent bushfire modelling and prediction capability under an agreement announced between CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, and AFAC, the National Council for Fire and Emergency Services. The partnership involves the development of Spark Operational, a cutting-edge bushfire simulation tool based on CSIRO’s ‘Spark’ fire prediction platform.

Fire and emergency services agencies across Australia will be able to use Spark Operational, opening bushfire prediction opportunities across borders and over different landscapes. CSIRO’s Spark platform combines current fire behaviour knowledge with state-of-the-art simulation science to produce predictions, statistics and visualisations of bushfire spread, as well as simulating hours of fire spread across a landscape in a matter of seconds.

AFAC’s Fire Prediction Services Group will work with CSIRO to improve existing technology and build a national system that allows for consistent bushfire predictions to support emergency service and response teams across borders. Phase one of the technology’s implementation commenced in January 2021, with further developments ensuring it will become fully operational over the next three years.

With each phase of its implementation, Spark Operational will be grown and adapted into a tool that all agencies nationwide can tailor to specific landscapes and bushfire behaviour, enabling them to better predict – and thereby protect – local environments. CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Larry Marshall said the innovation built on decades of expertise.

“Our solutions from science have protected Australians from the threat of bushfires for over 70 years, from roadside fire danger signs to advanced burnover protection materials,” Dr Marshall said. “But 2020 changed the game forever. So, we have changed our game too, by unleashing new science and technology to protect our firefighters and Australian communities”.

“We believe this advanced system will help firefighters outthink fire, to anticipate its actions, and to get ahead of it, so they can beat it. Spark is a great example of combining environmental, digital and materials science and listening to Australia’s front-line responders to deliver a real-world solution that works for them. Spark is a cutting-edge platform, based on today’s breakthrough technology but built on a strong foundation of research into understanding and predicting the behaviour and spread of bushfires.”

AFAC CEO Stuart Ellis said the new technology will support fire agencies to keep communities safe. “It was identified as the best solution to use to help achieve a nationally consistent system that will take the nation to the next generation of firefighting intelligence, and ensure we are protecting as many lives and assets as possible across multiple scenarios, mitigating the dangers of bushfire.”

Through a partnership with AFAC, Minderoo Foundation is supporting the development of Spark Operational as part of its Fire Shield Mission, which aims to detect and extinguish dangerous fires within an hour by 2025.

CEO of Minderoo’s Flood and Fire Resilience Initiative, Adrian Turner, said the development came at a critical time. “The Black Summer Bushfires burned with devastating impact, in extremely dry fuels and at a scale that is rarely seen, driving extreme fire behaviour, which meant that the modelling was not able to accurately predict spread,” Mr Turner said.

“The experience last summer has highlighted the need for better decision support tools to help firefighters protect people and the environment. Fire services will be able to test this tool during this next fire season, and this pilot project is a critical step towards better supporting firefighter decisions across a full range of fuel types to inform the earlier detection of fires in the future.”

Source: CSIRO

Germany’s UP42 has announced that data from the planned Australian LatConnect 60 satellite constellation will be available on its geospatial marketplace platform.

Perth-based LatConnect 60 intends to launch a constellation of mid-inclined orbit remote sensing satellites in early 2022. The initial two ‘smart’ small satellites will be equipped with onboard Artificial Intelligence (AI) for data pre-processing and advanced tip-and-cue functionality, according to information released by UP42.

The mid-inclined orbits of the proposed constellation will cover areas between 60 degrees north and south latitudes, especially the Earth’s equatorial regions with two to three daily revisits over this often-cloudy area, increasing the chances of cloud-free acquisition.

UP42 CEO Sean Wiid said that the proposed technology has the potential to reduce costs for resellers and end users, making enterprise-quality satellite data available to a wider range of small and medium enterprises.

“UP42 and LatConnect 60 share the common goal of democratising access to Earth observation information,” he said.

“We are excited to offer unique LatConnect 60 products for a region of the world underserved by consistent remote sensing coverage.”

LatConnect 60 CEO and co-founder, Venkat Pillay, said the UP42 platform’s algorithms will add significant value to their constellation’s imagery and data.

“With our joint focus on delivering satellite data to businesses in a cost-effective and easy-to-understand way LatConnect 60 and UP42 are natural partners. We look forward to collaborating with UP42 in developing new methods of delivering insights directly to end users,” he said.

The first two LatConnect 60 satellites will capture one-metre spatial resolution imagery in seven spectral bands including the visible, near infrared, and red edge, with a planned total of 16 satellites in orbit by 2025.

The LatConnect 60 imagery and derived products will join the array of Earth observation data products already available on UP42, including Pleiades 1A/B, SPOT 6/7, Landsat-8, TerraSar-X, Sentinel-2 and MODIS satellite imagery, HxGN and Getmapping aerial data, Intermap DEMs, exactEarth AIS data, and Meteomatics weather and ocean data.

Source: LatConnect 60

New Zealand’s tech sector is struggling to get enough skilled staff despite strong job growth and thousands of new tech jobs being created every year, a new survey says.

The Kiwi economy is being seriously restricted by a digital skills mismatch during difficult covid times, it says.

Digital technology businesses are having problems attracting, developing and retaining people with tech and creative skills needed to help New Zealand grow faster, especially out of the covid pandemic, NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller says.

The Digital Skills Aotearoa survey, launched in Wellington yesterday, says there has been a lack of coordinated effort leading to a skills mismatch with local education pathways not producing sufficiently experienced talent and industry relying heavily on immigration to support growth.

The Digital Skills Forum, run by the leading national tech organisations, such as NZTech, was established with government in 2015, to bring together government and the tech industry, to help address growing digital skills shortages.

Muller says in the past five years, IT occupations have been steadily increasing, growing 4.7 percent a year to 98,583 jobs across all sectors by 2019. Meanwhile, the education system has introduced digital technology teaching across all year groups in primary and secondary school.

“Demand for people with advanced digital skills worldwide is greater than the supply of qualified employees and the gap continues to grow.

“By 2025, as many as 149 million new digital technology jobs are expected to be created worldwide.  Many countries have begun to modify their education systems to improve the teaching of foundational skills and competencies required for a digital future.

“There are challenges including shortages of qualified teachers, low levels of student interest in digital career pathways and low levels of participation by girls and underrepresented minority groups. New Zealand is facing a specific digital skills challenge. This research clearly shows an issue of a skills mismatch rather than a skills shortage.

“The number of new digital technology roles created each year is not an insurmountable challenge. New Zealand requires about 4000 to 5000 new digital technology professionals each year, only a small percentage improvement across the pipeline.

“In 2019, 4462 new digital technology jobs were created. In the same year, 5745 students graduated from tertiary information technology courses, including 3265 students with degrees in either computer science, information systems or software engineering.

“The industry research conducted as part of this study found a majority of roles being recruited are for senior or experienced individuals, with very few entry level positions available.

“This indicates a skills shortage for senior experienced capabilities and an oversupply of under skilled graduates. To solve this problem, organisations have increasingly relied on immigration to access the required digital skills at the required time.”

The survey showed increasing reliance on immigration and low levels of investment in upskilling staff has created high levels of employee turnover as individuals actively seek new opportunities.

In recent years, immigration has become the preferred pathway for organisations recruiting for digital technology roles. Covid has put a halt to that.

“To ensure New Zealand’s digital future, we must build the digital skills pipeline, promote digital technology to students, parents and whanau and increase investment in educators’ confidence and upskilling.

“The government’s GovtTechTalent graduate programme has to be expanded and we should fund and coordinate specialisations across the ICT Graduate Schools,” Muller says.

For further information contact NZTech’s media specialist, Make Lemonade editor-in-chief Kip Brook on 0275 030188

Source: NZTech

Trimble Forestry announced recently that its widely used Log Information Management System (LIMS) now integrates seamlessly with the Connected Forest™ Xchange (CFX). The integration allows load ticket information from LIMS to sync to the cloud-based CFX portal, which can be accessed from any device, any place.  

With CFX’s flexibility, easy-to-view dashboards, and mobile accessibility, key operational data, such as electronic tickets, fiber source GPS coordinates, and detailed supply chain records can also be shared in near real-time, at the company’s discretion, with supply chain partners, such as harvesters, haulers, and scale sites.

“The level of data sharing enabled by our LIMS/CFX integration is key to increasing efficiency within forestry supply chains,” said Kevin Toohill, General Manager of Trimble Forestry. “Visibility and shared data increases timber security and facilitates real-time, data-based decision-making, as well as easier records reconciliation and faster payments.”

LIMS/CFX users can add electronic load ticketing using a mobile device with an added mobile subscription.  The CFX mobile subscription allows haulers and scale site operators to use reference data, such as source, destination, and species, synced from LIMS/CFX. The synched drop-down menus help reduce errors, greatly increase timber security and accountability, and make it much easier and faster to reconcile load tickets exchanged between harvest and delivery. The higher fidelity of tracking loads from forest to delivery allows companies to better support certification requirements. Every load that leaves the woods can be reconciled to a weight scale load coming in the gate.  

“This announcement further builds on our Connected Forest™ strategy to improve workflows and access to data within organizations and between trading partners throughout the forestry supply chain,” added Toohill.

To request a demonstration or learn more about the LIMS/CFX integration, email forestrysales@trimble.com or call Trimble Forestry sales at 888-443-4241 in North America. Trimble Forestry has sales offices around the world.  To find a local contact number outside of North America, please visit https://forestry.trimble.com/contact-us/.

About LIMS

The Log Inventory & Management System (LIMS) provides management control over all phases of timberland, woodland, yard, and mill operations. LIMS is an industry-standard forestry system for managing supplier contracts, contractor settlements, wood or fiber procurement, wood trading or sales, yard or mill inventory, consumption, and comprehensive reporting and planning. LIMS provides users an easily configurable operational dashboard, reporting wizards, and analysis capabilities. With CFX integrated, LIMS users are able to facilitate the sharing of key operational data from throughout the supply chain in near real-time.  

About Trimble’s Forestry Division 

Trimble’s Forestry Division offers SaaS and enterprise software to improve the productivity and sustainability of the world’s most recognized integrated forest product companies, forest managers, conservation organizations, government departments, finished product manufacturers, and the partners that connect the global forest supply chain. Trimble’s Connected Forest™ solutions manage the full raw materials lifecycle of planning, planting, growing, harvesting, transporting, and processing. For more information, visit forestry.trimble.com.

About Trimble 

Trimble is transforming the way the world works by delivering products and services that connect the physical and digital worlds. Core technologies in positioning, modeling, connectivity, and data analytics enable customers to improve productivity, quality, safety, and sustainability. From purpose-built products to enterprise lifecycle solutions, Trimble software, hardware, and services are transforming industries such as agriculture, construction, geospatial and transportation, and logistics. For more information about Trimble (NASDAQ:TRMB), visit:  www.trimble.com.

Source: Trimble Forestry