Fire prevention project to be tested on one of the largest black oak patches in Europe Defence and Security

The Nogueira mountain range, one of the largest black oak forests in Europe, will be the experimental field for a forest fire prevention project based on an artificial intelligence system, which if successful will be replicated in other forests in the country. This is the SAFE Project: Monitoring and Forest Alert Systems that aims to create and implement systems that minimize the risk of forest fires and monitor fauna through the collection and dissemination of information through sensors distributed throughout the territory. send information in real time to the plant located at the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (IPB).

Program can be replicated in other forest areas of the country

"It combines technology adapted to the natural values ​​of a specific region," said Ana Isabel Pereira, researcher at the Center for Research and Digitization in Robotics (CEDRI), one of the entities involved in the creation of this system in collaboration with the Mountain Research Center to work on the IPB. The project is funded by the La Caixa Foundation.

The information collected by the sensors is then analyzed by a system based on artificial intelligence that alerts on anomalies, according to

They start in January

The projects start in January 2019 and last for three years.

Virtual with odors

The Virtual Nature Project will have a virtual reality module that will show the course of the Douro / Duero Biological Station in Miranda do Douro. And a Montesinho Time-Laps that releases allusive odors every season. with parameters defined by the different agents that work in the territory (Civil Protection, Firemen, Police).

"We will develop an intelligent system, whose sensors will be placed in previously studied places, with the objective of monitoring the fauna and flora of the region, in Serra da Nogueira, and make ignition alerts, since if fire the Civil Protection can act in an effective way, "says Ana Pereira.

The La Caixa Foundation also funds the Nature Virtual project, which aims to implement four interactive modules for the interpretation of natural values ​​that analyze the resources of the Douro region and the Montesinho Natural Park to transform them into points of museological interest. by the Living Science Center of Bragança. That project also includes a monitoring system for the Rio Fervença.