An hour can make all the difference.
You can weed the garden, mow the lawn, and plant a tree in an hour. In that same hour, as gardeners who make compost may know their cost, smouldering biomass can easily burst into flames. When this happens in a forest, it can start a fire that ravages thousands of square kilometres and costs millions of euros to control.
Being able to discover forest fires early is an increasingly urgent issue. According to our Study, the latest largest fires in Arakapas in 2021 grew and consumed almost 55 km2 of the area, similar to the second biggest city in Cyprus, Limassol, according to the latest satellite image of the Copernicus program taken by the Sentinel 3 satellite on 07/05/2021. According to Philenews, authorities will spend more than 110 million€.
Our focus in Inntenet is to help the fight against climate change by creating a system for the ultra-early detection of wildfires called Silvanet®. Before starting, most of us didn’t know that wildfires cause 20% of global CO2 emissions. That’s about the same as the world’s traffic combined emit each year. For example, in Cyprus, The latest fire in Arakapas in 2021 caused 14% of Cyprys 7.2M tonnes of annual CO2 emissions.
In Cyprus, human activities are responsible for 85% of wildfire instances. We believe that it is, therefore, our responsibility to stop them. Unfortunately, on a global scale, the ruinous emissions they produce and wildfires also devastate biodiversity, with well over three billion animals dying in wildfires each year.
This is where Dryad comes in. We aim to complement these optical systems with a mesh network of solar-powered sensors placed directly in the forest.
Many companies are trying to tackle this growing global crisis. Detection via satellite imagery or cameras placed in the forest is two of the more common incumbent approaches. These systems are not without merit, but the fact remains that they are too slow in raising the alarm: it can be hours—if not days—before they detect a fire.
This is where Dryad comes in. We aim to complement these optical systems with a mesh network of solar-powered sensors placed directly in the forest.
Leveraging our expertise in IoT networks, machine learning and hardware, we can detect fires within 60 minutes. This is usually during a fire’s smouldering phase before an open fire has a chance to develop and spread.
Silvanet® Wildfire Sensor
The Silvanet Wildfire Sensor is designed to detect forest fires during their early smouldering phase and within sixty minutes – a crucial advantage in a scenario where every minute counts.
It also monitors a forest’s microclimate, measuring temperature, humidity and air pressure.
Silvanet® Mesh Gateway
The Silvanet Mesh Gateway extends the Silvanet network and creates a distributed network of sensors that provide ultra-early wildfire detection.
Our Mesh Gateways use LoRaWAN and do not require 4G/LTE or Ethernet connectivity, allowing Silvanet to be deployed in remote areas with no problems.
Silvanet® Border Gateway
The Silvanet Border Gateway is placed at the edge of the forest. It communicates with the cloud platform, relaying messages from the wildfire sensors of mesh gateways to provide real-time wildfire protection.
Built-in LTE and ethernet connectivity with SWARM satellite backup.
