Summary
- Profile Type
- Technology request
- POD Reference
- TRES20241205003
- Term of Validity
- 5 December 2024 - 5 December 2025
- Company's Country
- Spain
- Type of partnership
- Commercial agreement with technical assistance
- Research and development cooperation agreement
- Targeted Countries
- All countries
Contact the EEN partner nearest to you for more information.
Find my local partner
General information
- Short Summary
- Forest roads are key for timber harvesting logistics. A year before a new harvest, existing forest roads must be checked to ensure they can bear the expected truck traffic. This involves measuring the gravel thickness every 300 meters, which must be over 12 cm. An innovation services SME seeks solutions to speed up this process, either through digital technology to measure gravel thickness or an alternative method to assess the road's capacity before truck transit.
- Full Description
-
Forest roads conditions are key for the logistics of timber harvesting. Roads are initially built with a layer of gravel to bear the truck traffic of new harvest. Once the timber is transported by truck, roads are left unused until the next harvest, which takes place 15 to 21 years later. During those years, the roads are minimally maintained, essentially for fire control and weather plays a key role in the erosion of the gravel road surface.
One year before a new harvest roads need to be reassessed to ensure that they will bear the new expected truck traffic considering, the road’s withstanding capacity, water drainage capacity (clean ditches) and sufficient road width.
To assess the current status, a road check consists of making a run-off every 300 m. approximately (with a speed of 5-8 km/day) to manually obtain the thickness of the remaining gravel. When the thickness is under 12 cm. the road needs to be filled with additional gravel.
The Spanish innovation services SME is looking for a digital technology to either measure a forest road’s current gravel / aggregate layer thickness, OR an alternative way (e.g. automated) to assess the road’s withstanding capacity before the first trucks transit.
The goal is to implement an efficient and faster system to assess and ensure the capacity of the forest roads to bear the traffic of new harvests
The Spanish SME is an open innovation accelerator that helps companies find, connect and co-develop with other tech companies, startups or tech centers in various projects and partnerships. This request is part of an innovation challenge that is currently open to all interested applicants. - Stage of Development
- Already on the market
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
- Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
- IPR description
-
The future solution should fulfill some requirements, in summary:
• Accurately determine the condition of the road.
• Speed of measurement at least every 300 m. (and faster than the current process speed of 8 km/day approx.)
• Online measurements, with no need for post-processing of captured data in the field
• Lower system cost compared to the manually process used today
• Quality of the technical support in the realization of the pilot to be carried out in the field, in Latam
• Simple solution in terms of space requirements, use, equipment... and ease of implementation.
Partner Sought
- Expected Role of a Partner
- Solution provider
- Type and Size of Partner
- SME <=10
- SME 11-49
- SME 50 - 249
- Big company
- R&D Institution
- University
- Other
- Type of partnership
- Commercial agreement with technical assistance
- Research and development cooperation agreement
Dissemination
- Technology keywords
- 02008005 - Road Transport
- 07002001 - Forest technology
- 02009018 - Measurement devices
- Market keywords
- 09005 - Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, Animal Husbandry & Related Products
- 03007002 - Other measuring devices
- 08002002 - Industrial measurement and sensing equipment
- Targeted countries
- All countries