Predictive diagnosis and detection of diseased trees.

Environment

In the municipal forest and surrounding area of the city of Kuppenheim, there are more than 3000 trees that have to be checked and evaluated manually every year. This has resulted in an impressive collection of data on the condition of the trees in recent years. In order to support the city of Kuppenheim in its monitoring of the trees and their evaluation, a concept is to be developed for this purpose together with the city. Using the available data, image processing algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI), the images will be automatically evaluated and diseased trees will be detected. Furthermore, particularly endangered trees are to be identified at an early stage on the basis of environmental data.

Objectives:

• Research on the state of the art in image processing, artificial intelligence and typical tree diseases.
• Identification of the characteristics of diseased trees in exchange with the city of Kuppenheim
• Creation of a concept based on this and prototypical implementation
• Evaluation in Kuppenheim
• Documentation of the work, presentation of the results on site

Requirements:

• Interest in image processing, machine learning and nature
• Willingness to cooperate with local authorities and to travel to Kuppenheim on a regular basis
• Experience in the field of AI is an advantage
• Ability to work in a team and communicate