{"id":33636,"date":"2025-09-20T18:47:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/33636\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T18:47:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:47:07","slug":"ai-driven-chainsaw-drone-offers-safer-tree-trimming-near-powerlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/33636\/","title":{"rendered":"AI-driven chainsaw drone offers safer tree trimming near powerlines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">The project has received a $10 million grant over five years from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">The team includes Green, UC mechanical engineering professor Dan Zhao, UAV expert Dr Sam Schofield and University of Auckland mechanical engineering professor Karl Stol.<\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">One topic was the safety of trimming trees around live powerlines while nearby arborist work was carried out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cInitially, we developed a drone to carry an electric pruning tool that trimmed smaller branches, offering really good precision.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\" A chainsaw drone at work using AI software to cut small branches off trees. Photo \/ Sacha Skinner, University of Canterbury\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/> A chainsaw drone at work using AI software to cut small branches off trees. Photo \/ Sacha Skinner, University of Canterbury<\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">For branches larger than 30mm in diameter, a chainsaw drone was developed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe\u2019re using a small battery-driven chainsaw that can prune branches and twigs larger than 30 millimetres in diameter. <\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe use a DJI Matrice drone, which has a USB-C socket interface for our processor. <\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWhen we plug the processor in, we can see all the sensors and fly it using the controller. <\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\" Adjusting the chainsaw drone during trials. Photo \/ Sacha Skinner, University of Canterbury\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/> Adjusting the chainsaw drone during trials. Photo \/ Sacha Skinner, University of Canterbury<\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe fly near to a branch, tap the branch on the screen, and the drone takes over, using AI technology.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">The drone operators have been working with drones for 10 years and are very experienced flyers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">The AI in the computer processor is \u201ctrained\u201d using thousands of examples of branches, negotiating leaves, twigs and wind and learning how to auto-navigate once a branch has been identified.<\/p>\n<p class=\"kqzEwDUUT\" style=\"display:none\">Green said the team, along with Kiwi and international UAV experts, researchers and manufacturers, hoped to produce AI-driven chainsaw drones commercially next year for use across a range of different industries where jobs are inaccessible and hazardous for humans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The project has received a $10 million grant over five years from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[31696,31701,6658,138,8126,5164,31698,124,25094,11286,2251,5978,3180,111,139,69,8617,30855,31700,25530,6302,31699,7187,1361,15981,31697,1528,4576],"class_list":["post-33636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aidriven","tag-arborist","tag-built","tag-business","tag-canterbury","tag-chainsaw","tag-chainsaws","tag-could","tag-drone","tag-drones","tag-highrisk","tag-might","tag-near","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offers","tag-powerlines","tag-revolutionise","tag-safer","tag-safety","tag-scream","tag-team","tag-that","tag-tree","tag-trimming","tag-university","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}