The present invention solves a very complex problem that is a major obstacles for electric utility industry's power lines vegetation encroachment management business. Vegetation contacts to the high voltage overhead power lines cause flash-over and/or blackout which results in hazardous situations and economic losses. Power line vegetation management is a very cost intensive business process which is essential to ensure safe, reliable and affordable electric energy supply by the electric utilities, transmission and generation owners. This routine electric utility vegetation management related work is mandated and overseen by applicable federal, state or local regulatory agencies. The state-of-the-art vegetation management process involves labor and cost intensive foot-patrol, vehicular patrol, air patrol and airborne LIDAR patrol of power lines. These methods are often inefficient, unreliable, risky and costly. The present invention provides a method and system for automated vegetation growth, condition and status monitoring near high voltage utility electric lines using stationary sensors, wireless or wired communications and computation technologies and proprietary algorithms. The method and system of the current invention monitors the power line infrastructures remotely and advises the vegetation maintenance crews on mitigating actions without requiring human interventions, thus saving cost and reducing risks to the humans and environment. A comprehensive vegetation encroachment condition report with vegetation proximity advisory (VPA) and vegetation resolution advisory (VRA) is automatically generated and transmitted to the operational staff by the system for each electric line span at certain time interval or continuously without boots-on-the-ground manual asset inspection and/or air patrol using aircraft. This current invention is an automated, safer and low-cost solution to an electric utility industry's essential reliability and compliance related business process.

Embodiments of the present invention are related to an automated structure and curtilage protection system including a mechanical system hub with at least one of a control center, a pump, a pressure tank, a plurality of controllable valves, and a chemical injector assembly. The system includes a piped network, a plurality of spray nozzles and a remote user control portal. The remote user control portal is structured to calculate a hazard distance by averaging a plurality of known data positioning points of a hazard relative to a structure, categorize the calculated hazard distance into a categorized threat level within a hierarchy of preprogrammed threat levels and actuate the mechanical system hub based on an instruction set corresponding to the categorized threat level within the hierarchy of preprogrammed threat levels.

A method includes accessing a first dataset including aerial imagery data, accessing a second dataset including property boundary data, and identifying property boundaries associated with a geographic area. A plurality of artificial-intelligence (AI) models are applied to the datasets to identify and compute information of interest. Based on the first dataset and constrained by the property boundaries, a building detection model can be applied to identify a building footprint, and a tree detection model can be applied to identify one or more trees. An estimated distance can be determined between each of the trees and a nearest portion of the building footprint as separation data, which can be compared to a defensible space guideline to determine a defensible space adherence score. A wildfire risk map can be generated, including the defensible space adherence score associated with the geographic area.

A method and system to receive, one or more first images, one or more second images, one or more ambient weather related information, and one or more land related information, wherein the one or more land related information comprise vegetation features, terra firma topography, elevation, slope and aspect, of one or more regions of interest, of a geographical region; to map automatically, one or more risk areas of the one or more regions of interest; to recognize automatically, one or more smoke or fire related signals; and to predict computationally, existence of a fire causing smoke, a fire, a fire-growth and spread.

Methods, apparatuses, and systems for wildfire detection using power infrastructure are described. One or more aspects of the techniques described include determining (e.g., quantifying) the impact of wildfires on power structures and transmission line sensors. Determination of measurable changes in transmission line temperature and transmission line sag, that result from early onset fires, are used to detect heat events. Therefore, real-time monitoring of transmission line temperature and transmission line sag (e.g., using sensors that are already deployed in some power grid infrastructures) may efficiently detect the early onset of wildfires according to techniques described herein.

A system for remote detection of a fire condition includes a plurality of remote sensors and a central hub connected to each sensor to create a localized network capable of detecting changes in environmental conditioned within a geographic area defined by the locations of the sensors. The sensors may be configured to detect conditions such as changes in temperature, levels of carbon dioxide, smoke or other fire related particulates and report sensor readings back to the connected hub. The hub processes received sensor data from each sensor and generates an alert if the processed data meets any predetermined condition such as one associated with a fire. The alert may be transmitted to a tracking station with a geographic indication of where the alert was generated and a drone may be sent to the location of the geographic indication to acquire additional data to help determine if further action is required.

Disclosed herein are a method and apparatus for detecting a disaster based on images. The apparatus includes an image capture unit for capturing video using at least one camera and controlling the camera based on a camera control signal received from the outside; a disaster detection unit for generating a disaster log based on the video captured using the camera; a disaster analysis unit for calculating a disaster occurrence probability value based on the disaster log and determining whether to enter a camera control mode based on the disaster occurrence probability value; and a disaster alert unit for warning of a disaster based on a disaster alert request signal.

Described is a forest monitoring system and method. Monitoring is performed continuously and remotely and evaluates factors such as growth and health, as well as climate and environment variables in forests, wooded surfaces or thus identified surfaces, using wireless data transfer.

Embodiments of the present invention are related to an automated structure and curtilage protection system including a mechanical system hub, a piped network, a plurality of spray nozzles, and a remote user control portal. The mechanical system hub includes at least one of a control center, a pump, a pressure tank, a plurality of controllable valves, and a chemical injector assembly. The system is structured to autonomously take system action depending on a hierarchy of preprogrammed threat levels. The system is also structured to autonomously deliver water at set time intervals onto a structure and curtilage when instruction sets corresponding to relative threat levels have been activated. The system is further structured to autonomously deliver chemically infused water solely onto a structure's curtilage for a set time interval when instruction sets corresponding to a relative threat level have been activated.

A dispatch system includes an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) interface for interfacing with one or more UAVs for wildfire detection. The UAV interface transmits an instruction for a UAV to navigate to a location of a potential wildfire, and receives data captured by at least one sensor of the UAV. The dispatch system further includes a fire detection engine to process the received data to identify the presence of a wildfire, and a web server to provide a user interface that includes an alert regarding the wildfire. The alert may include the location of the wildfire.