Project Progress: A Recap of 2024

The first year of the Robotic-Assisted Wood Waste Removal Project is coming to an end. Over the course of 2024, our team has made exceptional progress. Designing a robot that helps prevent large-scale wildfires is a complicated process, so we thought we'd share some of the highlights! To get a better idea of the project as a whole, we met up with Principal Investigator, Professor Ricardo De Castro. What follows are his insights into our project’s progress and next steps.

One of the most important achievements has been "improving the perception algorithm of the robot," says Professor De Castro. The robot's ability to track a single, consistent person, even when multiple people are within view, will be crucial in real-world use. In the field, multiple people will be involved in gathering wood waste, but the robot will need to "focus" on just one. Currently, the team is working on programming for obstacle avoidance. This way, the robot will be able to evade running into people and obstacles in its path. 

At the moment, our team is running trials of the robot in the lab. In the coming months, the team will run trials in an actual forest, where the robot would actually be used. It is also crucial to find if people working on wood waste removal will accept the robot. Another future task is to determine if a single charge can sustain the robot for a full day; as Professor De Castro pointed out, "There is no infrastructure for charging in the forest." This is important to take into consideration since the machine learning that the robot uses takes a lot of energy. This constraint is but one example of why understanding real-world conditions is so crucial.

Figure 1. The RAWWR robot attending the Merced Earth Day event. 

Professor De Castro has a personal connection to the cause of the project. Growing up near forested land in Portugal, fires were frequent. "I could see people being evacuated, losing their homes and lives," he said. After going to university in an area less impacted by wildfires, he was once again confronted with the danger they pose when he moved to Merced. "Now, I am in a position with knowledge where I hope to make a difference," he explained.  As a professor of mechanical engineering, what could he do? The answer: decrease wildfire intensity by reducing the amount of available fuel… and do so using robots! Although using completely autonomous robots to do this isn't yet feasible, the robot our team is developing will be able to help transport wood waste that humans collect.

The project, which officially started in January of 2024, has changed a lot since the beginning, but the goal of preventing dangerous and destructive wildfires remains. The progress made with respect to person-following and obstacle avoidance are all in service of that goal. In the future, testing the robot in the field will help the team understand how it will work for carrying large amounts of wood waste out of these forests. Reflecting on this eventful year, Professor De Castro recognized how student engineers on the team have acquired both engineering skills as well as valuable feedback from community members at the Merced Earth Day event. In short, the first year of our project has brought the team closer to the goal of making our communities safer from forest fires.