Development of a Software Package for Digital Forest Inventory Based on Aerial Photography Data

Abstract

When clearing protective strips for linear infrastructure such as power lines, it is important to minimize tree felling. The purpose of the study is to develop and test a software package for digital forest inventory of tree and shrub vegetation in the zones of linear infrastructure facilities. In the study, a software package for digital forest inventory based on aerial photography with UAVs was developed and tested, based on the methods of multilayer perceptron and a self-organizing network based on competition (Kohonen network). The approbation has shown that it allows to accurately identifying the presence and height of trees and shrubs in the protection zones, to obtain precise coordinates for planning clearing works. At present, the areas of the territory where it is necessary to remove trees and shrubs are determined manually with an overestimation of 25-50%. Therefore, the use of a software package for digital forest inventory allows you to save up to 0.8 hectares of trees and shrubs per 1 kilometre of the length of the power transmission line, as well as save about 27 thousand rubles (about 375 US dollars) per 1 kilometre during work.