Artificial Intelligence in the Wild: neuneinhalb visits the university forest

Environmental protection is a hot topic in much of the world, so it came as little surprise that television world became interested in our FutureForest project.

The project blends state-of-the art technology such as artificial intelligence with nature management. It is truly a great example of how technology can benefit our world.

neuneinhalb (lit. "nine-and-a-half") is a weekly youth programme on Das Erste, the flagship national television channel of the ARD association of public broadcasting corporations in Germany. On an episode aptly titled "How can artificial intelligence help with environmental protection?" (German: "Wie kann Künstliche Intelligenz bei Umweltschutz helfen?"), the FutureForest team had the opportunity to present the research project.

In the episode, the neuneinhalb team visits the university forest of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich in Landshut, where the FutureForest test areas are located.

Here, Fabian Fassnacht (FU Berlin) explains the collection of field data in FutureForest, whilst Michael Reuss (TU Munich) shows the installation of sensors in the tree crowns. In these efforts, they were aided by Marco Bobinger (Ecosoph), responsible for setting up the sensor technology (dendrometer and ground sensors with radio connection) in the forest, Werner Rammer (TU Munich) and forester Christoph Dimke.

You can watch the full episode (in German) here:

The three year long research project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) through the "AI Lighthouses for the Environment, Climate, Nature and Resources" funding program. The BMUV is also supported by Zukunft - Umwelt - Gesellschaft (ZUG) gGmbH as a project sponsor.