lidar on Gaia Lab · Blog

Trees one by one from LiDAR point clouds: splitting the forest into individuals

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 13:15:00 +0200

Fifth instalment of Cluster X-ray. After the proteins , another line unrelated to language: forests.

The question #

A LiDAR scan of a forest plot returns millions of unlabelled points. To estimate above-ground biomass, and with it the stored carbon, you need to know which points belong to which tree: splitting the forest into individuals. It is a 3D instance segmentation problem, hard wherever the crowns touch. The line asks which architecture does it best, how much the result depends on the luck of the initialisation, and which information in the cloud really matters.

The experimental vehicle: a 5G lab on wheels

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0200

At Gaia Lab, the 5G and B5G technology experimentation laboratory of the ANTS group at the University of Murcia, we have put into service a multidisciplinary experimental vehicle for several research lines: 5G and B5G networks, vehicular communications, perception, IoT and edge computing.

Why a lab on wheels #

Many applications that depend on connectivity can only be evaluated on the move and on real terrain: high-resolution video, digital twins at the edge, cooperative communications or georeferenced multi-sensor data. We needed a mobile edge for the Espinardo Campus’s private 5G network, equipped with sensors, radios and computing.