New frontiers of Forest Fire Protection: A portable Laser System (FfED)

Forest fires are one of the worst events that can cause environmental and economic damage. It is impossible to predict the moment in which these events can happen because they can be the consequence of particular environmental conditions or of a voluntary criminal act. As a consequence it is necessary to work on a solution that allows surveying automatically the territory. The portable LIDAR system that the Quantum Electronics and Plasma Physics group has developed in collaboration with CRATI s.c.r.l. deals with these needs. The system, called FfED (Forest fire Early Detection system,) is presented in this paper together with the numerical and experimental results (in cell and in field), a discussion about their comparison and the possible future improvements.