TU Graz is launching the COMET project AutoForst for digitalisation and automation of the forestry value chain. The research project has a budget of 6 million euros and is being implemented in collaboration with three other universities and more than 20 industrial partners.

With 440,000 employees and a value added of around 43 billion euros, the Austrian forestry and timber sector is a significant economic factor. However, the sector is suffering from a considerable shortage of skilled labour. “Forestry is characterised by physically demanding and sometimes dangerous work,” says Mario Hirz from the Institute of Automotive Engineering at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), “Forestry companies cannot find enough people who are capable of carrying out the dangerous and difficult tasks.” Mario Hirz heads the recently launched COMET project AutoForst together with Christoph Stocker. Over the next four years, a consortium of three universities and more than 20 industrial partners will develop technical solutions to increase safety in forestry work, alleviate the labour shortage and make forest logistics and maintenance more efficient. The project budget amounts to 6 million euros, around half of which is contributed by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), the federal government and the provinces of Styria and Carinthia.

“In the AutoForst project, we want to develop digital and automated systems that make work along the forestry value chain more efficient, easier and safer. This will also make forestry work more attractive to new groups of people,” explains Mario Hirz.

Automated assistance systems

The project consortium will develop fully automated machines and assistance systems designed to make dangerous activities, such as handling and loading tree trunks, safer. In a preliminary project, researchers at TU Graz and their partners have already developed a prototype of an automated loading crane that lifts logs onto the lorry independently; forestry workers only have to monitor the loading outside the danger zone. The COMET project now plans to develop sensor and camera systems that recognise critical situations during loading, such as when people approach the danger zone or when the supports of lorries and trailers are not correctly aligned. The sensor technology is also being used to automate the transport systems as a whole.

Digitalisation of forest logistics

Forestry offers a wide range of potential for the use of digital technologies. The Autoforst consortium will conduct research into processes and solutions with which comprehensive data can already be collected, processed and made available online in the forest. “The systems will record key parameters such as wood type, quality and diameter directly when the tree trunks are harvested and forward the data to the owners in real time,” explains Mario Hirz. In addition, it should be possible to track the wood along the entire logistics chain in order to organise processes at customers such as sawmills or paper manufacturers more efficiently.

Using drones against the bark beetle

Sustainable forest management should also benefit from digital technologies. One example of this includes drones equipped with cameras that automatically recognise diseased trees. “In the event of a bark beetle infestation, the diseased trees must be removed from the forest within a few days to prevent the insects from spreading further,” says Mario Hirz. Drones save an enormous amount of time here.