- Terraformation is using technology including Dryad Networks’ wireless mesh sensors to bring intelligence to its tree plantations on the Big Island of Hawaii.
- The system currently tracks a 45-acre area on a dry and wind-prone area where trees are vulnerable to fire.
Terraformation has deployed a IoT-based fire detection and prevention solution from Dryad Networks to monitor air quality, humidity and temperature across one of its plantations of young trees. The system is designed to detect fire early, so that plantation management can respond.
Terraformation is a forestry-based company committed to restoring native forests and fighting climate change. It consists of a team of scientists and forestry experts focused on reforestation or afforestation for forestry customers who are seeking biodiverse carbon credits. The company already uses technology to manage its young trees across 1,000 acres, but wanted to add fire detection to ensure the safety of the trees from wildfires.
In August, the company deployed Dryad’s LoRaWAN mesh network-based sensors at its 45-acre Pacific Flight, Kaupalaoa site. Pacific Flight is located in a historically dry and windy part of Hawaii Island. “Its arid environment makes it an ideal candidate for the Dryad early wildfire detection system,” said Bryn Lawrence, site operations manager, Terraformation.
The implementation makes it among the first technological environmental monitoring systems of its caliber in Hawaii, according to Lawrence. While the Dryad system is currently deployed across one site with recent plantings, the company hopes to implement it in other sites if successful.
Visibility to Forests and Orchards
Dryad launched its IoT-based wildfire detection system in 2020 with small tree-mounted sensors and gateways, and cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) to manage sensor data.
By using machine learning signal processing to identify data patterns, Dryad can scale a deployment into hundreds or thousands of units that only send data when necessary, thereby ensuring users never overload their network, said Carsten Brinkschulte, Dryad’s CEO
In the case of Terraformation, the goal was to protect seedlings and young trees within a relatively small area.
“Trees in their early lives are more vulnerable to fire than after they’ve grown up,” said Brinkschulte. The goal is to protect new growth forests that are destined to sequester carbon over their lifetime.
An Array of 25 Sensors and a Two Gateways
Terraformation ordered 25 of the sensors as well as a border gateway and mesh gateway, all of which it installed on poles throughout the area of focus. Typically, one mesh gateway can support up to 100 sensors.
The solar-powered sensors capture sensor data related to gas (hydrogen, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds), humidity, air pressure and temperature. That data is sent via LoRa transmissions to gateways that can typically be deployed every five miles in a large forest. That distance varies according to topography.
“Trees in their early lives are more vulnerable to fire than after they’ve grown up,” said Brinkschulte The goal is to protect new growth forests that are destined to sequester carbon over their lifetime.
Self-Service Deployment
Deployment started in August, when Terraformation received the Silvanet hardware and began installing it. The system is designed to be easily deployed, out-of-the-box, Brinkschulte said.
Users go to Dryad’s Silvanet Cloud platform and establish their network using a map of their forested area where they want coverage, to identify the placement of one or more gateways and the sensors. The installers next go into the forest or plantation and begin installation.
They use a Dryad mobile application to access the map and leverage the phone’s GPS service to install according to that map. The mobile application guides the installer to the specific geolocation for each device to be mounted.
“We’ve designed the system so that the customers can deploy themselves, and that is absolutely key,” Brinkschulte said. That enables the wide scale deployment around the world, at relatively low cost.
Other Applications ahead
Dryad continues to develop applications that can leverage the sensor data, while others could be added in the future. Some applications will include noise sensors for chainsaw detection and bioacoustics to help with biodiversity in forests.
In the meantime, Terraformation could employ additional data points for the microclimate, locally, on the site specific to fire detection.
“Once the network is installed you can then bring in additional applications some of which we would offer in the future,” said Brinkschulte.
In fact, the vision of Dryad is to become that nervous system for the forest where the technology is installed. Dryad has customers in wide forested areas including in Canada, Thailand, Indonesia and South Africa. “The goal is to have very large-scale deployments,” he said.
Serving Business Benefits for Forestry and Beyond
While sustainability is Dryad’s key goal, the business benefit is what drives customers to the technology. Users include railroad companies, forestry businesses and mobile operators, all of which have an interest in ensuring their assets are safe and don’t want to cause wildfires.
“If we can have the [environmental] impact to protect the forests, while also boosting profits or avoiding costs, it’s the same result, it’s just a different way of motivating it,” Brinkschulte stated.
The mesh network is designed to overcome previous communication challenges related to capturing wireless transmissions in wide, remote areas. The company argues that forestry is among the least digitized of industries because getting IoT to work in the forest is such a challenge.
“That’s a hurdle that we’ve solved with this mesh network where traditional telecommunications does not work. That’s the fundamental enabler that Dryad has invested so much time in,” said Brinkschulte.
Future Integration for Intelligent Orchard at Terraformation
In the meantime, Terraformation will look for opportunities to expand its Dryad-based solution and integrate it with existing intelligence in the future. Already Terraformation uses open-source management system Grafana to monitor battery charge levels, water tank levels and photovoltaic system status and efficiency at Pacific Flight.
In the future, using Dryad’s API, said Lawrence, “Terraformation will import all Dryad data into our existing Grafana environment.”
In that way the company will be able to view real-time data, plus historical data, with more detail than the Dryad app alone. “Syncing Dryad sensor data into Grafana will allow us to take a more detailed view of our entire site with all of our data points displayed in a central dashboard with the added benefit of having a backup alerting system,” Lawrence added.
While the Dryad system currently exists on the private Pacific Flight parcel, in the long term, Terraformation Hawaii intends to work collaboratively with community partners as well as local government to drive conversations on wildfire mitigation statewide in Hawaii, said Lawrence.