A research team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has developed an unmanned aerial vehicle, named the Fireproof Aerial RObot System (FAROS). FAROS quadcopter has been developed to keep everyone safe in situations like high rise fires. The KAIST research team has been guided by Professor Hyun Myung of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department for the same institute.
The fire fighting drone, FAROS has been designed to fly, but can also climb walls when things heat up. The drone is capable of detecting fires, search building interiors and transfer real time data from a fire to the ground station, according to a report published in the Engineering.
Fires in the high rises may pose as deadly. This is due to the buildings' chimney effects which makes the situation complicated for the firefighters to reach closer to the flame. The firefighting drone has been designed to find out the source of a fire along with locations of the trapped people inside the building as soon as possible, reports Gizmag.
FAROS originates from a new and improved version of a 2014 project. It has been built with the intention to scout the interiors of buildings before firefighters enter. This will save their time and minimize risks through learning the information about where to concentrate their efforts.
Movement of FAROS relies on a quadrotor system and is capable of changing its flight mode into a spider's crawling on walls. This factor facilitates unimpeded navigation in the labyrinth of narrow spaces filled with debris and rubble inside the blazing building, reports Phys.
The inbuilt quadrotor system allows the drone to switch from flight to spider mode. A 2D laser scanner, altimeter and Inertia Measurement Unit (IMU) have been set to help it in establishing position and navigate autonomously.
A thermal imaging camera enables the firefighting drone to spot humans inside the building and sends the information to the ground station. The built in camera also lets the drone to find fire ignition points to concentrate firefighting efforts.
The research team has demonstrated the feasibility of the localization system and wall-climbing mechanism in a smoky indoor environment. The fireproof test has shown the enduring period of drone, more than one minute, at heat of over 1,000° Celsius from butane gas and ethanol aerosol flames.
Fire fighting in sky scrappers appears to be deadly due to the chimney effects of the building. A research team from KAIST, a Korean science and technology institute, has successfully demonstrated feasibility of a recently developed drone capable of conducting fire fighting operations through its climbing and flying modes. Built with higher heat resistant materials, it allows the fire fighters to concentrate in their fire fighting efforts more precisely.
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