FPInnovations’ Francis Charrette and Skogforsk’s Magnus Thor.
FPInnovations and the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden (Skogforsk) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to create an opportunity for the international exchange of research on automated harvesting and advances their respective interests in forestry innovation. Source: Timberbiz
The MOU also allows the organizations to combine their research might to work towards solving the common challenges affecting both the Canadian and Swedish forest industries such as increased machine productivity to maintain low supply costs, make harvesting safer by developing technology for automated forest machinery, and attract a new generation of forest workers to address a chronic labour shortage.
Both organizations have developed their own research projects on automated harvesting to address those challenges. One of FPInnovations’ flagship projects is Forestry 4.0 launched in 2018 to bring automation to the forest sector.
Skogforsk has developed a similar program centred on forest digitalization and machine automation that includes a teleoperations lab.
FPInnovations’ autonomous navigation project and Skogforsk’s teleoperations lab could become interlocking pieces of a puzzle that solves the dilemma of automating an industry that operates in densely wooded remote locations.
“If we want to create impact with speed, we can’t afford to work in parallel. So, in that sense both organizations recognize that working together will take each country’s research on forest-industry automation further, faster,” Francis Charette, FPInnovations lead scientist said.
The five-year MOU enables the companies to share the transfer of information and technology through joint courses and symposia; participate in employee exchanges and study tours to increase awareness of novel approaches, and co-author report on collaborative research.
The MOU falls under the umbrella of the Sweden-Canada Innovation Initiative (SCII) which is a broad platform supporting long-term relationships to encourage collaboration and foster co-creation of innovation ecosystems between Sweden and Canada.
