A Liverpool-based engineering and smart technology firm has signed a new partnership with an aim to plant 100m trees by 2024.
CAL International will be working with Australian tech start-up, AirSeed Technologies as they tackle deforestation.
They have designed and engineered a seed pod delivery system that sits as “the engine” of AirSeed’s unique tree-planting aerial drone technology.
“When AirSeed explained what they hoped to achieve, it was a challenge that we were delighted to take on. The huge significance and impact that this innovation can bring in the fight against climate change is truly global,” explained CAL International’s founder, Cliff Kirby.
“The collaboration between CAL and AirSeed will ultimately mean that each drone can deliver two pods per second over a designated area, planting up to 40,000 pods in a day. Through rapid automation and scale of the process, it can cover and penetrate a much wider geographical area.”
The AirSeed drone uses artificial and data intelligence that identifies and locates designated target areas with GPS coordinates and then fires carbon pods onto the ground at a rate of two-per-second.
The carbon pods are then pinpointed on the mapping system in line with the flight trajectory, which also considers wind variables and conditions on the day of planting. This allows the drone to return on a reconnaissance flight via the same route to then identify and map tree growth.
The pods each carry a gram of carbon, which is collected from rotting and dying vegetation. The pod protects the seed whilst in the germination cycle from elements such as insects, rodents and birds. The seed pod is activated when it rains, with the carbon absorbing the water and allowing the seed to germinate.
“CAL have taken responsibility for refining the design of the user interface and manufacturability of the seed pod delivery system. It was important that the engineering and build of this function would integrate into the flight systems and technical aspects of the aerial platform and tele metrics,” added AirSeed co-founder Andrew Walker.
“Working with CAL, they have managed to take an existing delivery system design and turn it into a unique pod delivery mechanism. The design and engineering that has gone into the aerial platform from CAL also means we can produce a great number of AirSeed aerial platforms and deploy these into the field quicker to speed up the process of reforestation which will help us in a race against time to mitigate climate change.”
