Features Forestry In the Field
Drone opportunities and challenges in forestry

December 9, 2015 – The days of drones being thought of as tools just for the military are long gone. The technology has found its way into a variety of commercial applications and the forestry sector is right there with other industries ready to take full advantage of this new remote sensing platform.

Drones available for the commercial market are a much smaller version than the military counterparts, usually weighing less than 35 kilograms and often much smaller. But how can such a small vehicle be useful for an industry that deploys its operations in large areas?

The use of remote sensing in forestry is not new. Imagery from aircrafts and satellites has been used for decades to generate forest inventory and build annual and long-term forest management plans. However, this type of application is fairly static with long revisit times between image captures. Efficient tools and methods for more frequent revisits on a smaller scale could be very useful for improving decision making of more dynamic and evolving events, which is often the case in active harvesting areas.  

In the forestry sector, there are two types of drone technologies that are starting to be applied. | READ MORE