dual-use?
almost always with drones and monitoring.
The drone will deliver infrared images, among other things, and works in combination with a fire detection system that the company developed earlier and that’s already being used in several countries. The fire detection system, called Silvanet, is designed to detect wildfires at the smoldering stage using solar-powered gas sensors connected via a wireless network.
It’s a good idea. But you can be sure that there already drones being used with infra-red tech to detect “tress-passing” humans.
Tresspassing where? Isn’t that a very American framing? I mean, it changes from place to place, but I just took a peek at the regulation in one of the places I know. Forested areas with no walls or warning signs are free for on-foot transit. If you walk through one that is explicitly signed or walled off you can get a 100 euro fine, but I seriously doubt they’re using fire detection systems for that and I have literally never heard of it happening.
Now, poaching? Yeah, you’ll get dinged for that. Oh, and offroad driving works the opposite way. Can’t do it unless explicitly authorized. I am perfectly fine with droning the crap out of both of those, though.
Maybe it’s different in Germany or Romania?
In Germany, you can go on foot wherever you want as long as it’s not fenced in or marked by signage, and you aren’t damaging anything. Currently, a lot of land is fenced in temporarily in some weird attempt to contain the African Swine Fever epidemic, though.
Generally, the idea of using semi autonomous drones equipped with thermal cameras for early detection of forest fires is a good idea. It’s a cost effective alternative to what is done right now. In most areas in Germany there are no dedicated resources for early detection of forest fires (only in regions of exceptional risk, there are dedicated resources, like a patrol aircraft and automated monitoring towers), so the task is mostly performed by police helicopters (the only suitable resource available) that will patrol forested areas in times of high risk. This, of course, is costly, and ties up the scarce resource of police helicopters for a task that’s not actually the job of the police.
Germany tends to have a very strict separation between police and the emergency services for historical reasons, (the details are regulated by state law, so there are some regional variations) as a result, having dedicated forest fire monitoring drones not operated by the police would in practice actually be a less intrusive measure than delegating this task to police helicopters.
Right. Not in Germany, but FWIW that tracks perfectly with what I’m aware of elsewhere in Europe and what I was referencing above. Good to know it’s not fundamentally different in the specific place we’re discussing.
There are already applications (you can buy such drones) for spotting thieves and also for spotting migrants. It’s mostly used for night-time monitoring.
Do migrants let off different heat signatures than locals? How does that work? And what’s the rate of on-foot irregular migration across German forests?
Look, I get it, people like to be paranoid about surveilance and “AI-based drone” is a great catchphrase to get social media juices flowing. I’ll say this, though: I’ve never had to fend off thieves, migrants or overzealous government officials from a forest-adjacent home, but I HAVE been on a driveway with a hose fighting off a forest fire in more than one occasion.
Early detection of forest fires is something I am willing to support in most circumstances. Hypothetical threats and slippery slopes aren’t going to cut it. On paper I’m no more paranoid about automated drones than about manned air and land fire patrols, and we already have those during high risk season.
So I don’t know if we need to buy flying drones, but we could definitely use some effective, automated early detection for very practical reasons. I wanna know if an implementation of it works, not whether it’s a step towards a surveillance dystopia. Especially since we already live in one of those and carry the equipment in our pocket willingly.
Also, while I’m here, if you do own a plot of forested area make sure you do cleanup and maintenance on it yearly, sell it or donate to the public. Seriously, don’t be a dick.
I agree that the drones and their sensors can be used for good things too. That was the initial point: dual use.
