Osvaldo Santos of the technology company Axtron Systems explained today that the main goal of the FIRECOM project is to use drones and artificial intelligence “to help reduce the risk of forest fire spread in urban-forest interfaces.”
“The project created a tool that uses drones to capture high-resolution aerial images of designated areas and automatically determines safe buffer zones around buildings and roads, where the density of trees and vegetation must be managed,” stated Santos.
The process begins with defining the area to be assessed via a satellite map-based web interface.
“We use an AI model [convolutional neural networks] to automatically detect the contours of buildings and define containment zones around them. Since satellite images have low resolution and are not frequently updated, it’s necessary to collect current, high-resolution images, and that’s where drones come into play,” he emphasized.
In the second phase, a flight plan for the drone over the study area is prepared. A module was developed for this purpose to prepare the flight plan to obtain images with specific characteristics.
“This module creates a file that can be exported to the drones, which then perform the flight and take photos completely automatically. All photos are tagged with their respective GPS coordinates.”
The images are subsequently processed to create an orthophotomap (an aerial image of the area, geometrically corrected so the image is uniform throughout) and a 3D representation of the area of interest.
Finally, the system uploads all this data and identifies locations where biomass in the containment zones needs to be removed to comply with legislation and reduce the risk of fire spread.
In the coming months, the project will enter a demonstration phase, mainly involving municipal councils responsible for managing fuel containment zones along municipal roads.
FIRECOM was developed within the framework of a larger project, CHAMELEON, funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe program.
CHAMELEON is being developed by a consortium of 12 partner organizations across nine European countries, with significant participation from innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (six in total) and three universities.
This project aims to optimize production and identify potential issues in agriculture, livestock farming, forestry, and rural areas using drones and artificial intelligence.
Within CHAMELEON, an open call was launched for SMEs to competitively develop small projects aligned with the project’s focus.
Axtron Systems submitted a proposal aimed at using drones and artificial intelligence to identify dangerous biomass in containment zones.
FIRECOM was selected, with its fundamental objective being to develop tools that can help identify risk zones, contributing to preventing the spread of fires in rural areas and ultimately preserving human lives and property.
Axtron Systems is a technology startup based in Castelo Branco.
Founded in 2023 by two professors (Osvaldo Santos and Natércia Santos) from the Superior School of Technology (EST) at the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, the company seeks to transform cutting-edge research and innovation in computer engineering into products and services that make a difference in society.
