Forest 3D Mapping and Tree Sizes Measurement for Forest Management Based on Sensing Technology for Mobile Robots

This research work aims at application of sensing and mapping technology which has been developed with mobile robotics to equipment measurement of forest trees. One of the key information for forest management in artificial forest is the records of the tree sizes and standing timber volume of a unit area. The authors made measurement equipment as trial production which consists of small sized laser range scanners with rotating (scanning) mechanism of them. SLAM and related technologies are utilized for the information extraction. In development of SLAM algorithm for this application, sparseness of the standing trees is considered. After the SLAM based mapping based on the data at several measurement points, we can obtain useful information such as a map of standing trees, diameter at breast height of every tree, height at crown base (length of clear bole), and so on. The authors will report the experiments in the forest and present the map and measured tree sizes. T. Tsubouchi and A. Asano University of Tsukuba, e-mail: [email protected] T. Mochizuki, S. Kondou, K. Shiozawa and K. Sasaki Adin Research Inc. M. Matsumoto Kurume National College of Technology S. Tomimura, S. Nakanishi, A. Michizuki and T. Hayami Forest Revitalization System Corp. Y. Chiba Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute