The Catalan company COMSA, in collaboration with the university center Institut Químic de Sarrià (IQS) Tech Transfer (accredited with the ACCIÓ TECNIO seal) of the Ramon Llull University (URL), has developed a software with intelligence artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent forest fires caused by the poor state of vegetation near railways and power lines. The company, specialized in infrastructure, uses a system of continuous viewing of satellite images, where machine learning technology and AI determine the state of the nearby vegetation to warn the companies and that they carry out the corresponding maintenance tasks .

The project, called ISAPREF, has received a grant from the Government, through ACCIÓ - the agency for the competitiveness of the company of the Department of Enterprise and Work - of 123,182 euros from the INNOTEC line.

COMSA's R+D manager, Joan Peset, explains that, thanks to the collaboration with the team of Dr. Marco Antonio Pérez, professor in the Industrial Engineering Department of the IQS (Ramon Llull University), "it has been achieved that through the vision and analysis of thousands of images, the developed system increases the accuracy and speed of detection of changes in the vegetation, and allows for the premature detection of potentially dangerous situations for the infrastructures". The main objective, reports Peset, is to "minimize the risk of a forest fire caused by an excess of vegetation". To make this possible, machine learning and AI are "key", he says, "to extend the capacity of simultaneous monitoring along all the kilometers of the infrastructure and to complement the prevention tasks carried out by operators at the roadside or electric tower".

COMSA has conducted several pilot tests to analyze the performance and reliability of the software. The company's R+D manager, Joan Peset, emphasizes that "from the INNOTEC project, we have opened new R+D processes to find new digital techniques that can be used in the infrastructure maintenance sector" . In fact, Peset believes that "it will not take long for the sector to implement tools and technological solutions that complement the maintenance tasks carried out daily by operators".

COMSA is a global Catalan group, founded in 1891 in Tarragona and currently established in Barcelona. Specialized in the design and development of advanced, innovative, sustainable infrastructures with a high technological component, it has a presence in the Catalan market, in the rest of the State and also in other countries in Europe and Latin America.

It has more than 5,600 workers, distributed in 31 offices around the world. There are 2,000 in Catalonia, and around 300 at the headquarters in Barcelona. In 2023, they generated a business volume of 929 million euros and by 2024, they expect to surpass the barrier of 1,000 million euros invoicing