Precision forestry: an open-source IoT digital caliper and app to simplify tree diameter measurements

Abstract

Forest planning involves estimating the biomass of species present in the area. Two fundamental parameters are diameter and height through which it is possible to indirectly estimate of biomass present. Digitalisation of forestry operations, such as forest planning, is crucial and should be affordable and easy-to-use digital applications and open-source devices. A digital progressive web application (PWA) was designed to record measurements. The app was connected via bluetoot to an open-source IoT digital forestry caliper prototyped by modifying a commercial tree caliper. An economic analysis was carried out considering all costs necessary for the development and operation of the app on smartphones and the preparation of electronic means for creation of the digital caliper. A comparison was made between costs of detecting tree diameters through application of the technology developed compared to costs calculated by applying the use of a dendrometric caliper (three technological levels were considered: L1, L2 and L3). The PWA allowed for easy data entry and viewing, maps and tree densities. The open-source digital caliper showed accuracy and precision comparable with similar commercial devices (1.5% ± 0.9% and 0.0% ± 0.9%, respectively). Total time per operator was lower using the digital caliper. From an economic perspective, application of the digital technology was more sustainable than the traditional system. Use of the digital caliper in combination with the web application optimizes detection time of a single tree, and therefore decreases overall cost.

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