Sensing and Navigation of Aerial Robot for Measuring Tree Location and Size in Forest Environment

TL;DR

This paper presents an autonomous aerial robot system capable of sensing, recognizing, and measuring trees in a forest environment to aid forestry mechanization and data collection.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrated system combining tree recognition, measurement, and navigation algorithms for aerial robots in forests.

Findings

Successful autonomous flight in a forest environment

Accurate measurement of tree location and size

Effective tree recognition and database generation

Abstract

This paper shows the achievement of a sensing and navigation system of aerial robot for measuring location and size of trees in a forest environment autonomously. Although forestry is an important industry in Japan, the working population of forestry is decreasing. Then, as an application of mechanization of forestry, we propose tree data collection system by aerial robots which have high mobility in three-dimensional space. First, we develop tree recognition and measurement method, along with algorithm to generate tree database. Second, we describe aerial robot navigation system based on tree recognition. Finally, we present an experimental result in which an aerial robot flies in a forest and collects tree data.