Forestry – UCVision

Integration trip to Auckland

The UC Vision drone team recently visited the University of Auckland team in February 2026 to integrate their automated pilot assist software with the Planetary Hex drone that the UoA group have been working on.

The visit focused on system integration and platform-level testing. After resolving a few inevitable integration issues, the team successfully demonstrated autonomous pruning in a lab environment. The Planetary Hex had a very stable hover, and its ability to move horizontally without tilting made aligning the pruning tool with the branch easier compared to a traditional multi-rotor. Planned outdoor trials on the rooftop area of the UoA Recreation Centre were later limited by strong winds, highlighting the challenges of operating in real-world conditions.

Drone’s pruning trees

The UC Vision team have been doing a lot of field tests recently of their drones with tools, mainly pruning trees. We have two tools, a pruner tool and a chainsaw which hangs below the drone and has a locking mechanism which holds on to the branch and then saws through the branch. Field trials have been very successful so far as can be seen from the videos.

Drone with Chainsaw

The UC Vision team successfully cut a 30mm dowel with a chainsaw attached to a drone. For more information on this research project: https://ucvision.org.nz/drones/

UC Vision at the Smart Christchurch Innovation Expo 2024

Our UC Vision Team had a big presence at the Smart Christchurch Innovation Expo which was held at Te Pae, the Christchurch Convention Centre from 27 to 28 September. We had several of our team manning the UC stand which included a drone display, both underwater drones and flying drones.

Rory Clifford, who is on our team, did a talk about how he is constantly seeking and applying the latest technologies to real world applications. He talked about virtual, extended and augmented reality, digital story telling and digital twins, to unmanned aerial vehicles and underwater robotics. He has adapted these systems to a variety of applications such as fire and emergency training, helping hapū and iwi to digitally retell stories and mātauranga for current and future generations, to providing insight into underwater farming of mussels and scanning the seabed. His driving force is enabling our people to upskill and apply new technologies for our sustainable future.

Drone meeting in Auckland September 2023

The University of Canterbury research team from the $10mil MBIE funded Drones with tools project, flew to Auckland on 4 September to have an in-person meeting with the University of Auckland team. These meetings are crucial for integration of all the different parts of the drone project.

The day started with talks given by key researchers from the drone project plus some presentations by project students from the University of Auckland. There was then discussion over the drone design which is a planetary hex drone design by Associate Professor Karl Stol’s team.

The day concluded with two drone presentations including one peg in hole demo.

We are in an exciting phase of the project with the final drone design for prototype one being ready by 1 October.

Drone Research Meeting – November 2022

In late November the UC Drone project team travelled to the University of Auckland to test the DJI Matrice drone in their very impressive wind tunnel.

The DJI Matrice drone was transported from the University of Canterbury to the University of Auckland, minus the batteries. We then borrowed some Auckland based batteries and flew the drone against a wind in the tunnel. The drone has impressive stability against the wind.

Presentations were given by both the UC and UoA teams and there were lab tours showing some of the amazing drones at the University of Auckland. It was wonderful to see what Professor Karl Stol and his research team are developing.

It was agreed that this was a very useful meeting and that we needed to have more in person meetings in the future as this is where a lot of research integration would happen.

Drone fieldtrip to Amberley – August

The drone team had a trip on 23 August to Proseed in Amberley who kindly allowed us to test our drone onsite. Our final year project team with some industry support had made a cutting tool which comes out in front of the drone to cut pine catkins.

Industry Event for the Drones with Tools project 14…

Last week on 14 June, an Industry event was held for Professor Richard Green’s $10mil drones with tools project which is funded by MBIE. The project has a key research team from CSSE and Mechanical Engineering, University of Canterbury, let by Prof. Dan Zhou, as well as a team led by Assoc. Prof Karl Stol from the University of Auckland. Industry partners were invited to see progress on this interesting project which started last October.

The event was located at the UC Club where research presentations were given by the key researchers as well as lab tours of the Mechanical Engineering wind tunnels and the Drone lab located in Computer Science and Software Engineering department. We were lucky to have warm sunny winter weather and there were many interesting discussions had about the research.

This project will span five years and aims to enable drones to use tools with high precision in mid-air in difficult changeable settings. The goal is to create technology that can be used in forestry, testing power lines or in the construction industry

Category: Forestry