Development of the auto measurement system for cedars in a forest using a drone

Abstract

Drones have been used in many purposes for a long time. Especially, development of the automatic observation systems such as measurement using drones for the primary sector of industry have been frequently researched in recent. The measurement of a tree growth in a forest is also one of the aim for a drone application. In this study, our aim is to develop the automatic measurement system for size of a tree in a forest. The difficulties are that a drone has to recognize trees, to construct a map of a forest and to measure the size of trees from a front camera. To overcome those difficulties, we propose that a drone recognizes trees based on SSD, constructs a map from SLAM and measures a tree by SfM. Experimental results from the drone competition show that a drone has been able to recognize a tree and to fly safety.