#Robotek forest software
Chen is joined by co-founders Michael Shomin, Treeswift's CTO and a Robotics doctoral graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Vaibhav Arcot, Software Lead with a Master's in Robotics from Penn Engineering, and Elizabeth Hunter, COO with a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, also from Penn Engineering. It was this urge to use his Penn Engineering experience to effect real-world change that drove Chen to create Treeswift. I wanted something that could fit into a bigger community, that would go beyond CIS researchers, and really make something happen in the world." I wanted my research to be more than a paper sitting on a shelf. "I realized that I liked everything I was researching but there was something about entrepreneurship that spoke to me. Over time, Chen began to realize the potential broader impact of his research. These robots buzz through fields and process images of crops via computer vision algorithms, effectively counting the fruit on trees and providing precise numbers to growers. Chen also collaborated with other researchers to build flying robots that could capture precise field data for farmers. He joined the GRASP Lab and worked under the direction of Vijay Kumar, Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering, to develop autonomous ground and aerial robots with an emphasis on robot swarms and bio-inspired algorithm designs for collective behaviors. Our main customer base right now is industrial forestry, but we are looking into opportunities that would enable us to work in wildfire forest management as well."Ĭhen began thinking about the concepts behind Treeswift when he started his doctoral program at Penn in 2016. "We are trying to build a general system that solves a lot of problems. "Treeswift is a balance of priorities," Chen says. The collected data can be used by researchers in a variety of industries to assess the health of forests and build predictive models that can aid in climate change action initiatives. Of the variety of applications this data has, Treeswift is focused on three main targets: calculating inventory for the timber industry, mapping forests for preservation, and measuring forest biomass and fuel to prevent the spread of wildfires. The drones collect images of the land and render them into 3-D maps that can be analyzed for precise, quantifiable measurements of a given forest's biomass. Treeswift uses swarms of autonomous, flying robots equipped with LiDAR sensors to monitor, inventory, and map timberland.
The idea behind it is simple: use robotic tools to automate forestry and reduce risk for human workers. Steven Chen, co-founder and CEO of Treeswift and doctoral student in Computer and Information Science (CIS) at Penn Engineering, wants to change that.Ĭhen founded Treeswift as a spin-off company from Penn Engineering's GRASP Lab.
0 kommentar(er)
