Institute of Technology, Resource and Energy-efficient Engineering (TREE)

Reforestation with drones: Garrulus launches new project phase

Brennan Penfold und Ahmad Drak mit neuer Drohne Projekt Garrulus November 2022

Thursday 1 December 2022

It has a wingspan of 2.70 m and weighs around 40 kilograms. A new drone will help the Garrulus research project to spread seeds in suitable places. At the same time, its acquisition initiates a new development phase in the project.

In Garrulus, computer scientists from the Institute for Technology, Renewables and Energy-efficient Engineering (TREE) are working on reforesting destroyed forest areas. They are researching whether specially made drones can contribute to mapping the damage and reforestation. The team, consisting of Professor Alexander Asteroth, Ahmad Drak, Brennan Penfold and Maximilian Johenneken, has now completed the first phase of the project. They conducted aerial and soil studies in damaged forest areas to generate reliable data for analysing the forest floor.

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PhD student Ahmad Drak in the video about the Garrulus project.

"On the forest floor there are areas where there is a lot of dead wood lying around, or areas where the tree needles cover the soil. We want to put the tree seeds in places where they have the best possible chance of growing. To do this, we have also collected information on temperature and the chlorophyll content of the flora, among other things," says Ahmad Drak.

The next phase of the project involves building a prototype seed mechanism and attaching it to the drone. This will make it possible to sow new seeds very specifically in certain places. The new drone can carry a weight of up to 60 kilograms. This means that all the necessary sensors and the seed mechanism can be attached to it at the same time. The scientists expect to be able to reforest even larger areas of forest in this way.

Kontakt

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Ahmad Drak

Projekt Garrulus, wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter und Doktorand

Location

Sankt Augustin

Room

A 035

Address

Grantham-Allee 20

53757, Sankt Augustin

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Alexander Asteroth

Professor of Computer Science, Director of Institute of Technology, Renewables and Energy-efficient Engineering, Speaker of Efficient Mobility workgroup

Research fields

Location

Sankt Augustin

Room

A 022.3

Address

Grantham-Allee 20

53757, Sankt Augustin

Telephone

+49 2241 865 255
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Pascal Schröder

Science Editor

Tuesday until Friday

Location

Sankt Augustin

Room

E 241

Address

Grantham-Allee 20

53757, Sankt Augustin

Telephone

+49 2241 865 9969

Monday

Location

Rheinbach

Room

H 008

Address

Von-Liebig-Str. 8

53359 Rheinbach