Publications / 2014 Proceedings of the 31st ISARC, Sydney, Australia

Contrivances to Assist Forest Machine Operator on Forest Road with Steep Slope

Katsutoshi Saibara, Shigeomi Nishigaki, Fujio Matsuda, Shinichi Kubota
Pages 458-465 (2014 Proceedings of the 31st ISARC, Sydney, Australia, ISBN 978-0-646-59711-9, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

As for forest harvesting in Japan, machine operators have to handle their own forest machines on forest road with steep slope in the deep mountains. One common hazard that they are always facing is machine stability under different ground conditions. This paper presents the contrivances to provide the people concerned with low-cost Best Management Practices (BMPs), which would be firsthand knowledge of the harvest area being considered, and could support the machine operators who work for harvest operations, and logging road construction and maintenance. First, this paper presents visualizations of terrain attributes. Secondly, are described methods to reduce time and effort on collecting data required by construction, maintenance and restoration of forest road. Thirdly, this paper shows advance alert system pertaining to posture of machine body during the operations, and methods to provide the people concerned in advance with information on the situations of the forest road and the surroundings. Finally, remarks are described.

Keywords: Forest road, Machine stability, Contrivance, BMPs, Open source software, R, Advance alert, Advance proximity warning