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Hitachi

Social Innovation

Poaching of earth’s invaluable green cover is a global concern. In India too, rampant and unsolicited felling of precious trees is one of the prime causes of irrevocable loss not only in monetary terms to the government or the grower but also in rapid depletion of our invaluable green resources that adversely affect the environment and subsequently the society at large.

Institute of Wood Science and Technology (IWST), that is under the aegis of Ministry of Forest approached Hitachi India to come up with an innovative solution to promote forest conservation in India and curb such thefts beginning with its premises. For the solution to be scalable, Hitachi had to consider real-life constraints of non-availability of electricity, limited cellular network and cost.

Hitachi, a firm believer in Collaborative co-creation worked closely with IWST to understand how to install the custom developed LoRa technology based tree sensors that are long range, low power wireless platform and use innovative IoT based technology efficiently function even in the remotest of the regions. The sensor transmits information on any intrusion on the asset (in this case the tree) along with the location details to the authorized personnel on Hitachi Anomaly Detection to Prediction and Prescription (HAD2P) web based application, which could be accessed even through Smart Phones. The prompt update helps them to take appropriate decisions to protect the trees in near real-time.

Lora Technology Based Tree Sensors
  • Save Valuable trees from theft/ uprooting/ chopping

  • Location Tagging of Assets (Trees)

  • Real Time Tracking (GPS and Google Maps)

  • Alerts & Alarm Reporting on Mobile Application

  • Easy Installation of Sensors to the trees and configure

Realizing that the technology has greatly dissuaded poachers to trespass IWST premises ensuring safety of the valuable trees in the campus, in 2017 IWST organized a ‘Farmers Mela’ to promote the SMART Forest Solutions and have been in discussion with The Government of India to promote this technology. Moreover, due to which IWST is inundated with enquiries from farmers regarding this technology to protect their valuable trees - A positive and promising step towards developing the much needed smart forest solutions in India estimated at 3,810 million INR.

During the implementation and project’s favorable outcomes, Hitachi realized the need and possible application of this innovative IoT based technology in a wide range of businesses and help make the world a better and safer place.