Plenary Lecture

A Dynamic System for the Evaluation of Forest Fire Risk With Emphasis to Mountainous Terrain

Prof. G. Stavrakakis
Technical University of Crete
Greece

Abstract: Evaluation indices for forest fire risk in existence today take into consideration meteorological and climatologic parameters with constant estimation thresholds. In the proposed case, new techniques will be used for the creation of automatically adapted index thresholds depending on the region anaglyph (e.g., mountainous terrain), vegetation flammability, time of the year, real time meteorological conditions, distance from residential areas, etc. Neural system, fuzzy logic and combined statistical model techniques will be demonstrated how they apply to the above purpose. The creation of a digital hypsometric model of the region under study in combination with satellite image information will form the foundation for the standardization and mapping of forest fuels, as well as for the pilot application and demonstration of the system to be developed in this research work. All of the above will be integrated into a fire control system, which will be functioning in real time, for the forecast and management of fire behaviour and for assisting in planning out fire extinguishing.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Prof G. S. Stavrakakis. was born in Crete-Greece in 1956. He received his first degree in Electrical Engineering from the N.T.U.A. (National Technical University of Athens), Athens, in 1980. His D.E.A. in Automatic Control and Systems Engineering was obtained from I.N.S.A., Toulouse, in 1981 and his Ph.D. in the same area was obtained from “Paul Sabatier” University, Toulouse, in 1984. He has worked as a Research Fellow in the Robotics Laboratory of N.T.U.A. (1985-1988), and as a Visiting Scientist at the Institute for System Engineering and Informatics/Components Diagnostics & Reliability Sector of the EEC - Joint Research Centre at Ispra, Italy (1989-1990). He is currently a Full Professor at the Technical University of Crete, Greece. His research interests include industrial and space technology applications of control and estimation theory, production systems automation, robotics, Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic technology, Decision Analysis for process reengineering, systems safety and reliability analysis, real-time industrial processes fault monitoring and diagnosis, alternative sources of energy modeling and automation. He is the author and co-author of about ninety full papers in international journals and conferences, twenty research reports and three international edition books on the above topics. He has participated in 29 EC funded projects on the above topics and he has coordinated the 8 among them.