Fossil-free forestry with harvesting drones in fully functional system test

Purpose and goal:

Today´s thinning machines use 60,000,000 liters of diesel yearly. The purpose of the project is to quantify the amount of emissions that can be avoided by using an electrified drone-based system.

The goal is to have 50% lower energy consumption compared to traditional ground-based machinery. The result is that the energy consumption for thinning can be reduced by more than half. We have demonstrated a complete system for thinning using drone, tool, an operator station, and a mobile battery. Expected results and effects:

Analysis of the potential for drone-based thinning of forests has been carried out in collaboration with SkogForsk. Preliminary analyzes show that very large extra storage can take place, which would be of great value both for forests and for significantly reducing Sweden´s territorial emissions. Approach and implementation:

The research question is defined as studying the performance of a drone-based system compared to a traditional machinery system (TMS). A thinning system based on an electric-powered drone, thinning tool, and operator station has been developed. The technically validated potential performance has then been used in a simulation tool and compared to a TMS.