Mapping and Navigation Technology for Worker Safety 

Modern mapping and navigation aren’t used just for drivers – there are many professions that make use of these technologies to both optimize and streamline the work and to offer the workers an additional layer of safety. This is applicable to many fields, such as construction, industrial sites, deliveries, or warehouse work, for example, but also in the agri-food sector, including agriculture, forestry and farming. The FEROX project makes use of mapping and navigation technologies to offer an improvement in worker safety during wild berry picking in forests, following the idea that technology should help protect people, and not only make their jobs more efficient. 

The risks in agriculture for the workers 

Forests and farmlands might seem like peaceful workplaces, but people working there every day can find certain challenging situations or environments that can be a threat to their safety. These can include uneven terrain, falling branches, peatlands, the presence of insects or other wild animals, or sudden weather changes, added to the physically demanding tasks themselves and the possibility of simply getting lost in densely tree-covered areas.  

Furthermore, workers are often far from help in these situations, especially in forestry, sometimes out of reach of mobile networks and usually out of sight of other people: 

• GPS signals can be weak or inaccurate in remote areas and under thick tree canopies. 

• Cellular service can be spotty, and radio communication may not work across hills or dense terrain. 

• Workers may be alone or easily separated from the group and be out of sight for hours at a time. 

• When there are emergency situations, help might be far away or might have difficulty accessing the area. 

For these reasons, it’s important to not only guarantee a quick emergency response when the situation requires it, but also to implement safety measures for the workers to avoid or work around these dangerous situations.    

FEROX technology for mapping and navigation 

The FEROX project is working to bridge this safety gap, bringing together universities, tech developers, and forestry professionals to create a system composed of a fleet of drones and other technologies that can map, patrol, and assist in real time, making quick decisions that could prevent accidents or save lives.  

These autonomous, collaborative, context-aware and resilient drones have the capability of: 

• Creating 3D maps of the environment, including terrain, trees and obstacles. This is done thanks to the use of LiDAR sensors mounted on the under-canopy drones. 

• Navigating autonomously under the tree canopy, avoiding obstacles and optimising trajectories with the use of navigation strategies like LiDAR-based SLAM. 

• Monitor the well-being of workers in real-time, even without a reliable GPS connection. 

• Recognising gestures made by workers with RGB cameras, such as signals to inform of an emergency or to indicate they are okay. 

• Send alerts to the operators or emergency services immediately when an emergency is detected. 

In the case of wild berry pickers, the FEROX project provides the pickers with updated maps of wild berry distribution predictions obtained from drone-obtained images of the berries present in the forest and other information, such as terrain models or previous berry-distribution models. It is thanks to optimised autonomous drone navigation algorithms that the distribution maps can be efficiently generated. With this information in a smartphone Picker App, the berry pickers can navigate the forests confidently, avoiding potentially dangerous areas, finding wild-berry hotspots quickly without so many chances of getting lost in the forests, or asking for assistance in case of an emergency.

OTHER APPLICATIONS

While the FEROX project focuses on offering assistance to wild berry pickers in the forests, the idea of using an autonomous fleet of drones for worker safety can be extended to other applications, such as these examples: 

• Forestry: rerouting machinery and personnel in timber harvesting operations where drones map the terrain and detect unstable patches of ground after heavy rain, thereby avoiding potential risks in landslide areas. 

• Agriculture: dynamic mapping of crop fields, detection of terrain accessibility, assistance in machine routing, and keeping isolated workers visible in real time. 

• Construction: provision of overhead situational awareness in large construction sites, where supervisors can guide workers according to the situation, reducing this way uncertainty and helping prevent injuries before they happen. 

• Disaster response: drones can be deployed after wildfires, floods, or earthquakes to safely assess damage, identify survivors, and guide response teams in unpredictable terrain. 

• Industrial inspections: drones can access dangerous, tight or remote areas in industrial settings more easily than humans, making it possible to easily inspect power lines, pipelines, or wind turbines, providing full visibility without exposing people to risk. 

• Mining: using new mapping and navigation technologies, drone fleets can navigate mining areas to monitor pit edges, tailing dams and underground entries, while keeping surface workers tracked and terrain conditions updated. 

Technology that puts people first 

The FEROX project stands out for its focus on people, having the goal of using automation not only to improve efficiency, but to augment human awareness, providing useful, actionable information directly to field workers and their teams at any moment and in a user-friendly way, letting pickers stay focused on their job of collecting berries. 

The FEROX project shows that automation isn’t about replacing people—it’s about giving them the tools to navigate uncertainty with confidence. Because when every step is mapped and every change is noticed, safety stops being reactive and starts becoming proactive. 

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.  

Author:  

Laura Smith Ballester (Universitat Politècnica de Valencia (UPV)) 

Meta description 

Learn how the FEROX project uses drone mapping and navigation to improve safety for forest workers and beyond—putting people first in tech. 

Keywords 

Worker safety technology; drone mapping; navigation technology in forestry; autonomous drones for safety.