New technologies
Dryad, the technological spirit that protects forests from fires
Audio 02:09
Cartsen Brinkschulte poses in front of his booth at VivaTech with his early forest fire detection tool, Dryad.
© Leopold Picot
By: Léopold Picot Follow
3 mins
Its name is inspired by the forest spirits of Greek mythology: Dryad.
It is a revolutionary device, a real alarm against forest fires.
Exhibited at Vivatech, the new technologies fair, this connected object promises to create a 2.0 forest that would alert firefighters of the start of a fire.
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Dryad is discreet in the huge living room of VivaTech.
It is a small green box that fits in the palm of the hand, in the shape of a stylized leaf and barred by a solar collector for the power supply.
Like many brilliant ideas, the revolutionary concept is extremely simple.
Carsten Brinkschulte proudly holds the small connected device he co-developed: “
The sensors can detect a fire in less than 60 minutes from the start of the fire.
When the fire is still very small, we send the GPS coordinates of the sensor that detected the fire.
»
The small connected object is equipped with a GPS chip, which indicates the presence of a fire from the first flames.
All this in less than 60 minutes, it's an invaluable time saver.
A classic camera spots a fire between one and three hours, a satellite after one or even several days.
“
If you ask a firefighter what the most important thing in fighting a fire is, he'll say it's the weather.
The sooner he knows where the fire is, the faster he can get there, the easier it is to put it out.
So time is really essential
”, explains Carsten Brinkschulte.
The Dryad sensor in action.
© Dryad
Dryad protects five hectares of forest with a single device.
From the first traces of carbon in the air, the latter will send the information quickly via a network of radio waves
“
Part of our solution is a wireless network infrastructure for the sensors.
It can also be used for many other applications, other sensors including soil moisture, tree growth, and monitoring forest health and growth.
So we are digitizing the forest.
»
Connected forests
Digitizing the forest, an idea taken up by several countries that have invested in Dryad.
This is just the beginning, hopes the co-founder: “
We started selling Dryad in February of this year.
And we currently have ten customers in Southern Europe, especially in Greece and Spain, as well as in Turkey.
We start selling to USA, South Korea and Indonesia.
We do not yet have a customer in France, but we hope to have some soon!
»
Among the
too many useless technologies
of VivaTech, the Parisian innovation fair, this invention swears, and it is intended: positive impact is at the heart of Carsten Brinkschulte's corporate philosophy
.
"
Our main mission is to have an impact on the environment and we only develop products and projects when the two objectives are achieved, when we can make a profit, but also when we have an impact on the environment, a positive contribution to society and nature.
It can be very profitable to help nature and that is what Dryad does
,” he boasts.
The small device is sold for 38 dollars each, a cost much lower than that of a fire: in California, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year to extinguish the devastating fires of the region.
► If you have any questions or suggestions, you can write to us at
nouvelles.technologies@rfi.fr
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