How AI-powered drones are tracking down fires in German forests
The installation, resembling a giant golf ball covered in solar panels, is the hangar for an AI-powered drone that its developer hopes one day will be able to sniff out and extinguish new blazes in minutes.
"Fires are spreading much faster and more aggressively than in the past. That also means we have to react more quickly," Carsten Brinkschulte, the CEO of the German firm Dryad, told AFP at a demonstration of the technology outside Berlin.
Once a rarity, the German capital has to get used to more wildfires. Flames ripped through a forest on the city's western edge in the midst of a 2022 heatwave that saw several wildfires spring up in Germany.
The sort of tinderbox conditions which promote blazes -- where heat, drought and strong winds dry out the landscape -- have increased with climate change.
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Wildfires have reached the point where they were "basically unstoppable", said Lindon Pronto, senior wildfire management expert at the European Forest Institute.
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That is why action is needed to develop tools to "address fire in the prevention phase, during the operational phase, and also post-fire", said Pronto.
'Prevent a disaster'
Dryad is in the running with 29 other teams from around the globe for a multi-million-dollar prize to develop the ability to autonomously put out fires within 10 minutes.
During Dryad's demonstration on Thursday -- the first for a computer-steered wildfire detection drone, according to the company -- chemicals in smoke from burning wood were picked up by sensors distributed in the forest.
The signal was relayed back to the company's platform which released the drone from the orb. The unit rose above the trees, charting a zig-zag course to track down the precise location and extent of the fire.
A drone of an AI-based drone system is pictured during a presentation of 'Silvaguard' the first autonomous, AI-based drone system by sensors technology company Dryad for early forest fire detection in Eberswalde. Photo: Ralf Hirschberger / AFP
Firefighters using the information collected by the drone would be able "to respond much more efficiently and quickly and prevent a disaster", Brinkschulte said.
Dryad eventually hopes to have the drone descend below the canopy and put out the fire using a novel technology: a "sonic cannon" blasting low-frequency sound waves at the right pressure to suppress small fires.
An experimental acoustic suppression method, if it can be created, would save the drone from carrying "large amounts of heavy water", making the unit more nimble and effective, according to Brinkschulte.
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'Civilisation meets nature'
Technologies like Dryad's are a step towards putting out fires "without putting people's lives in danger", said Pronto, a native of California, where recent wildfires have had a devastating impact.
Huge blazes in Los Angeles in January killed 29 people, razed more than 10,000 homes and caused some $250 billion (€231 billion) in damage, according to estimates by the private meteorological firm AccuWeather.
The greatest benefits of an autonomous fire prevention system would be in areas where "civilisation meets nature", Brinkschulte said.
Such crossover zones are the most vulnerable to man-made wildfires, "where the risk to life and limb is naturally highest".
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The company hopes to bring the drone to market in 2026, with the first deployment likely to be outside Europe.
"These systems still need to have the regulatory framework to be able to operate commercially," Brinkschulte said, adding that Dryad was aiming for deployment in Europe in the "coming years".
A couple of kinks need to be worked out before then, however. The first attempt to respond to the dummy fire last week was held up by a faulty GPS signal.
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Local Germany
an hour ago
- Local Germany
Everything that changes in Germany in September
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DW
3 hours ago
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A German town's bid to break China's grip on rare earths – DW – 08/20/2025
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Vital to the manufacture of permanent magnets that show up in consumer electronics, renewables, and defense technologies, these chemical elements are largely sourced in China. As a result, Europe is dependent on exports — something it would like to change. Enter Bitterfeld. The idea is to recycle rare earth elements from end-of-life electronic devices. In May 2024, the family-run German tech group Heraeus opened its facility — a grey rectangular building shielded by a high barbed-wire fence — for that purpose. At its launch, the site was presented as "the largest rare earth magnet recycling plant in Europe." Initially, it aimed to produce around 600 tons of rare earth magnetic powder per year, with plans to double this figure to 1,200 tons in the near future. But that's not quite how things have panned out. A year after the launch, Heraeus says the facility is struggling to break even, despite the field's potential strategic importance. 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Jan Giese, a senior manager at TRADIUM, a German metal products distributor says the challenges are due to "relatively high prices for interesting scrap material," higher European production costs, "lower recycling capacities and resulting poorer economies of scale." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video According to TRADIUM, the price of neodymium oxide has been gradually declining — albeit with certain volatility — since March 2022, reaching one of its low points around mid-2024. This further adds to recyclers' profitability struggles. So far, less than 1% of the rare earths consumed in the EU are recycled, Rüya Perincek, press officer at the EU Commission, told DW. And though Brussels has approved several projects to help tap private funding, it is not likely to tip the scales in any big way. 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According to Leroy, Brussels needs to introduce dedicated waste codes for permanent magnets so they can be traced and recycled before going missing or being exported. Together with its partners, the WEEE Forum has also created an online Urban Mine Platform highlighting the volume of precious materials in EU waste — equivalent to roughly the weight of three million African elephants. Bender, co-head of Heraeus Remloy, hopes to see a swift introduction of measures to boost the recycling of rare earth elements. He is calling for mandatory quotas and financial or tax incentives for using recycled European magnets, especially in the car industry. "The situation is very challenging... If nothing is done right now, I can't see any change happening by 2030," he added — despite the goals set in Brussels.
Int'l Business Times
4 hours ago
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India Celebrates Clean Energy Milestone But Coal Still King
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