multidisciplinary team led by Alexandre Bernardino, Técnico professor and researcher at the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR), is developing an intelligent observation system to help detect and fight forest fires. The project titled Firefront has been under development since March 2019 and was presented on 30th June, at Santa Cruz aerodrome, in Torres Vedras.
“The system is composed of sensors – video cameras and positioning sensors- that can be installed aboard manned or unmanned aircraft, which detect fire and predict the future location of the fire front”, explains professor Alexandre Bernardino. “This information is provided to the authorities and allows them to make better decisions on how to approach the fire,” he adds.
This technological solution will allow to send data and images in real time to the Civil Protection agents and to predict the spread of the fire fronts, according to the land and biomass in the real scenarios. In addition, this system will allow an accurate mapping of fire outbreaks, even in cases of reduced visibility due to smoke, and an accurate forecasting of the evolution of forest fire fronts.
Firefront was created in 2017. FCT launched a competition designed to fund research projects aimed at preventing and fighting forest fires. The project was approved in 2018 and started in March 2019. “We are about half the duration of the project. It resulted from a joint initiative of the various partners, who have already collaborated in other projects, and who decided to join efforts to contribute to help fight a problem that has such a negative impact on the Portuguese economy and society”, shares the project leader.
Throughout the development process, Firefront’s primary goal was upgraded. “Firefront will also provide support for early forest fire detection”, says professor Alexandre Bernardino.
Besides the ISR team, the project involves scientists from Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), Centro de Investigação da Academia da Força Aérea (CIAFA) and the Association for the Development of Industrial Aerodynamics (ADAI). The consortium also involves two institutions with great operational capacity: the Portuguese Air Force and the Aeroclube de Torres Vedras (ACTV); and UAVision, a specialized company that contributes to the most technological part of the project.
“Currently, forest fire detection and forecasting are carried out in a non-automatic way, requiring human intervention in several steps of the process, which delays the response times”, recalls professor Alexandro Bernardino. “We hope to be able to automate much of the process with Firefront and provide easier and faster access to information, thus increasing the effectiveness of the combat”, stresses the Técnico professor.
At the moment, the system is in the testing phase. The project is expected to be completed in March 2022.
