Live demonstrations at the stage to prepare for the first ten deployments.
Environmental IoT startup Dryad Networks joined the fight against climate change and launched Silvanet, a large-scale IoT network used to detect wildfires at an ultra-early stage, and successfully carried out in the forest near Berlin First live demo.
Dryad is currently working with forest owners in the United States, Europe, Australia, Indonesia, and Africa on ten proof-of-concept deployments. Mass production of sensors and gateways will soon begin in Germany.
Silvanet provides public and private forest owners with an affordable and easy-to-deploy solution for handling wildfires during the initial smoldering phase, helping to prevent massive carbon dioxide emissions from wildfires, protecting the environment, wildlife, and communities from damage, while being significant Reduce financial impact.
Dryad uses a highly sensitive network Solar gas sensor Monitor air composition, temperature, humidity and air pressure.Small sensors attached to trees pass Silvanet IoT mesh network To the cloud-based monitoring platform, in the event of a fire, the platform will immediately issue an alarm to the relevant parties.
The solution can be Detect wildfire Within 60 minutes-even in the smoldering phase, before there is an open flame. In contrast, camera-based and satellite-based solutions can take hours or even days to recognize a fire because they rely on plumes and heat that are sufficient to be detected from a long distance. When firefighters arrive at the scene, the fire has often become too large to be extinguished and can no longer be controlled.
Silvanet solutions include:
- Small solar sensor equipment Hang on a tree and include a new “digital nose” in the form of a reliable high-precision gas sensor provided by Bosch Sensortec. The sensor uses artificial intelligence to reliably detect wildfires and distinguish other sources, such as passing diesel trucks.
- Mesh gateway Adopt Dryad’s patent-pending distributed mesh network architecture-an extension of the LoRaWAN open standard for long-range radio IoT networks. The solar gateway can be easily connected to trees about 3 meters above the ground and build a large-scale IoT infrastructure. By adding additional sensors, the network can also be used to monitor the health and growth of trees.
- Border gateway They are close to civilization—usually on the edge of forests or open spaces—and are connected to the Dryad cloud platform via wireless (LTE-M), Swarm’s satellite communication network, or using wired Ethernet. Customers can also choose to use Starlink (Space-X) satellite antennas to achieve high-speed, low-latency broadband connections. The border gateway can be powered by city power or solar power.
- Dryad cloud-based dashboard and analytics platform, Allowing customers to analyze and monitor indicators and alert forest managers.
Dryad’s gateways are interconnected in a groundbreaking multi-hop mesh network, which can cover very large forests instead of the 12 km range normally supported by existing LoRaWAN gateways. This technology makes it economically feasible to establish communication networks for large forests that are not covered by mobile networks.
In June 2021, Dryad was selected as a cool supplier in Gartner’s report on cool suppliers in the IoT. Dryad is a business enterprise with sustainability and technology as its core. Founded in 2020, its mission is to digitize forests and help protect and regenerate the world’s largest carbon sink.
Wildfires account for about 20% of global carbon dioxide emissions each year, displace tens of thousands of people, endanger people’s health due to inhalation of fine particles, and have a devastating impact on biodiversity: only in Australia, only in the jungles of 2019-2020 During the fire season, more than 3 billion animals were killed or displaced. In California in 2018, wildfires caused US$150 billion in economic losses, which is equivalent to 0.7% of US GDP.
Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO and co-founder of Dryad Networks said:
“From the number and intensity of wildfires burning around the world today (such as the wildfire after the thermal dome in British Columbia, Canada last month), it is clear that there is an urgent need for a solution that can detect wildfires during the smoldering phase and then It happens again. Out of control.”
“With the completion of our Silvanet architecture and equipment design, we are expected to realize our mission of digitizing forests, fighting wildfires and climate change by helping to protect the natural world.”
Dr. Stefan Finkbeiner, CEO of Bosch Sensortec, commented:
“According to Bosch’s guiding principle of “Inventing for Life”, we hope to improve people’s quality of life and protect the livelihoods of present and future generations. Sustainability, climate and nature protection play a central role in this regard. Therefore, we are very happy to let Dryad The Internet of Things network can actively use our gas sensors for forest fire detection. Our four-in-one sensor BME688 at the core of Silvanet has unparalleled sensitivity and ultra-low power consumption, and supports machine learning to identify gas components in the air. This is The perfect basis for identifying poor air quality or early fire detection.”
Dryad is now preparing to obtain Series A funding and was nominated as a finalist in Greenbackers’ 26 for COP 26 program, which connects startups with climate-focused investors. Dryad previously received 1.8 million euros in seed funding from STIHL Digital, LEAG, ISAR AG and Brandenburg Kapital, and an additional 1.6 million euros in EU-funded grants and low-interest loans from ProFIT Brandenburg.
Looking to the future, Dryad plans to use the potential of its general IoT network infrastructure built in the forest. By adding third-party LoRaWAN compatible sensors to Silvanet, the system will be able to collect and analyze data on soil moisture, tree growth, and surrounding microclimate, helping forest managers optimize forest health and growth, and increase productivity and profit using data-driven decision-making tools .
