ODIN
Customer: School project.
Collaborators: Åse Lilly Salamonsen, Johanna Brämersson, Simen Lorentzen, Bendik Vestre.
My role: Concept, Ethics, System oriented and Product design part.
Material : Adobe illustrator (software), SolidWorks (software), Keyshot (software), Diagrams (software).
Duration: 6 weeks.
2020
What is Odin ?
Odin is a project I worked on together with an team of fellow students.
It's a revolutionary, complex system that proposes new way to harvest Norwegian forests.
Since it’s difficult to understand complexity of it we splitted it in 7 different faculties.
Hugin, Munin, Odin, Yggdrasil, Volund, Skylifter and Sawmill.
We will not go in depth here on Sky lifter and Sawmill since those are external services we've
included in our system. Skylifter's rolle would be a harmless transportation of tree logs and equipment in and out of forrest.
To explain Odins function, first we need to understand why do we need a change?
Climate change is a fact today, and in the last 30 years we have been made aware of the consequences it has caused us. Not only is the earth's average temperature getting higher, but the temperature rise is also going faster than it did 100 years ago.
The forest is not only important in terms of the issue of global warming, 80% of the world's land-based species diversity lives in the forest (WWF), and today, in Norway, this amounts to well over 30,000 species! In the course of 20 years alone, we have discovered 4,000 new species (N.Skogeierforbund). The new findings are due to both the development of a new survey tool and not least new forestry methods that give species a better habitat. By facilitating that the species diversity has good living conditions, we reduce the chance that important genetic material disappears, which can be used in medicine, for example. In addition to species diversity, the forest also has other positive effects on the environment such as a large uptake and storage of carbon, prevention of erosion and a more robust terrain against extreme weather. The forest also helps to ensure clean and sufficient drinking water.
In Norway most of forest is harvest by private companies by technic called Clear Cutting. It's a method of tree removal where all trees in an area (approximately 20 acres or more) are removed with heavy machines that destroy ground. In doing so whole eco system of that area is killed. In addition, all carbon dioxide that is trapped in the ground will be released. In these areas new trees will be planted. That sounds innocent, but the problem is that since there is only one species of trees planted back, this will kill variation in species. In past years we are observing rapid grow of Monodominance in forests all over the world. In this process a high and low quality wood are blended together.
Is there any other way ?
Selective cutting! This method allows cutting down of selected trees in a forest so that growth of other trees is not affected. This is done by applying specific criterias like: minimum tree size for harvesting, specifications of the number, spacing and size classes of residual trees per area, and allowable cut.
To be able to understand difference between Selective cutting and Clear cutting we made a giga map.
We also made on giga map to help us understand how forrest interacts with rest of our surrounding
Hugin is the collective term for all external data that is entered into the system. Hugin collects scientific data from many sources. One of the actors Hugin collaborates with is the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. They were established in 1866 and are international leaders in weather and climate research. Hugin receives information about temperature, precipitation and wind from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. The institute also maps climate change.
Obtaining satellite images helps to map the forest's area, as well as how the forest changes over time. Hugin also collects scientific data from multiple international sources. Hugin not only collects data from scientific sources; but also history (how nature has evolved over time, which decisions have yielded which results), political decisions, market forces, etc. Simply put, all available data is collected - the more the better. The great advantage of taking in such a large amount of data is that technology is able to handle it better than humans. We will discuss this in more detail in the section on Odin.
That would cast around 3 000 000 kr
Maintenance 500,000 kr per year
Munin is helium drone that will collect data across Norway.
By our research just 5 of those drones could scan all forests in Norway once per year.
We belive that one drone would cast around 12 000 000 kr.
Development would be around 20 000 000 kr and implementing
5 000 000 million kr.
Maintenance 10 000 000 kr per year
Odin is an artificial intelligence program. Information from Hugin and Munin is collected in the central unit Odin; here all data is put into a system and analysed using artificial intelligence.
Odin is the software that through artificial intelligence collects, calculates and disseminates information about the forest. The software gets the data from Hugin (Varied sources) and Munin (Scanning drone) which then calculates the diversity and condition of the Norwegian forest.
Precisely through applying machine learning Odin has managed to learn from and develop their own decision-making ability based on empirical data.
This improves the ability of taking better decisions the longer it is in operation and thus the forest will be managed in a better way.
The advantage of using artificial intelligence over humans for a decision is that a computer can calculate and evaluate large amounts of data faster than any human.
On the contrary to how the forest was worked in the 2010s, where one assessed how to menage a forest just based on local surroundings.
Odin has a greater overview of the forest,
an overall picture of the relationship between climate change, biodiversity, political decisions, supply and demand - and a bunch of other factors.
This contributes to Odins decision making based on a lot broader factual basis than what has been possible in the past.
Odin also provides good opportunities for transparency in the management of Norwegian forest, and publishes annual reports to non-governmental organizations, recommendations and strategic advice to the state, as well as exchanges data with similar systems in other sectors. This is how large amounts of data come about for doing good.
We are aware of the risk of tracking endangered species can lead to both illegal hunting, trade and collection. This has been secured against through one strict data policy, which includes what can be traced, who can get hold of the data and how it can be used. One has also been introduced stricter policy on the use of private tracking equipment. We were watching 2010s an increase of this type of equipment that had consequences such as seeking out and interfering of wildlife. It is still an ethical issue how to deal with conflicts between people and animals and how AI should handle the different situations.
Development would be around 12 000 000 kr
Maintenance 1 500 000 kr per year
The Yggdrasil service gives forest owners access to all necessary information! Hologram The map is easily displayed from the standard hologram platform available on most surfaces.
Development would be around 17 000 000 kr
Maintenance 2 000 000 kr per year
The Volund service provides architects or other buyers of wood total control over what materials are available; as opposed to traditional order via sawmill, where it in large degree was only the standard measure of wood available. Now the buyer can choose their preferred material, yes even the individual tree. To show you power of this tool:
No more bending of wood to achieve desired shape, u can now buy a tree that was already growing in this shape for past 100 years !
This is possible thanks to 3d scanners made by LiDAR technology
Represented as a hologram map, or on computer, provided detailed data to the customer via Odin, and provides such good opportunities to think new and use materials in new ways for what which can be constructed.
Development would be around 5 000 000 kr
Maintenance 1 000 000 kr per year
This is project wat Featured in Post Sod
You can read it from below form side 42
The project is more complex than what was presented here. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you would like us to present project for you.
Also Please note that the prices listed above are biased on research we did online and we are fully aware the cost of system like this would be much larger. Reason why I put it here is to show how misleading information on internet can be.
