NOTTINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
UTILISING BCU ADVANCED NETWORKS AND AI TECH FOR CONSERVATION
Birmingham City University ’ s Assoc Prof Taufiq Asyhari & Dr Moad Idrissi discuss the revolutionary technology transforming forest management for the future
Situated slap-bang in the Midlands , Birmingham City University benefits from the easily accessible , central position of the third most populous city in the UK . It ’ s perhaps why Nottinghamshire County Council ’ s Ceren Clulow partnered up with BCU ’ s Associate Professor Taufiq Asyhari and Dr Moad Idrissi when looking at different use cases for her 5G Connected Forest project – envisioning ways that the technology being designed and developed could benefit Sherwood Forest and beyond .
Dr Asyhari , an Associate Professor of Networks and Communications , explains how he came to be involved in the project : “ My journey into this project started in March 2020 , when I was asked by the Head of School for Computing and Digital Technology to lead this big profile project . We reviewed the scope of the project and , as a university
with primary tasks focused on environmental management , we decided to leverage our ground robots and aerial robots to conduct forest monitoring .”
“ Since then , we have been engaging quite closely with our lead partner , Nottinghamshire County Council , in terms of getting these targets and deliverables done ,” he adds . “ From the beginning , we looked at how we could put technical specifications on the robots and drones to help us achieve our objective . Then we looked at the design of the robot and drone functionalities , incorporating state-of-the-art elements of digital technology , such as artificial intelligence and 5G connectivity , to see how we could harness their power in an area where it ’ s had limited use before – which is , in this case , environmental management .”
With these pieces of technology , the BCU team managed to meet objectives ,
40 May 2022