TREEMON: Condition monitoring of standing trees

Assessing the vitality of standing trees is of great interest for environmental protection, tree care, fruit cultivation and forestry. For this purpose, the micro-acoustic sound emissions (SE) occurring in standing trees can be evaluated in order to draw conclusions about the condition of the tree, its safety, drought stress and sap flow anomalies as well as possible pest or disease infestation.

Until recently, long-term monitoring and the digital integration of the measurement results into a database has failed due to the large number of applications, tree species and sensors used. The TreeMon project therefore aims to develop an autonomous sensor node for micro-acoustic sound emissions and put it into practice.

To this end, a demonstrator of a wireless sensor node is to be developed, which is attached to the trunk of the tree. This records micro-acoustic sound emissions over a longer period of time and evaluates them independently or with the help of a central computer on the basis of machine learning. In addition to temperature, humidity and wind data, dendrological and digital optical parameters of the tree will also be recorded. The digital measurement system is intended to detect and classify significant damage and diseases at an early stage, suggest timely measures, and allow more stable and better yields in fruit growing. Furthermore, it is intended to evaluate the effectiveness of long-term measures in forestry and, if necessary, serve as a basis for their adaptation and modification.

Funding body: Project Management Agency Karlsruhe (PTKA)

Project period: September 2023 – August 2026

Project partner: IfU GmbH Private Institute for Environmental Analysis, Früchteverarbeitung Sohra GmbH, OGF - Ostdeutsche Gesellschaft für Forstplanung mbH, Teletronic Rossendorf GmbH

Funding: Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Project website: https://www.treemon.de/