The drone is a hot topic in recent years. And the application of drones is not only in aerial photography but also in emergency relief, resource exploration, environmental monitoring, natural disaster monitoring and assessment, forest fire pest protection, and monitoring.
Besides, firefighting in the forest consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. Once a fire breaks out, the damage caused by forest fires to the entire ecological environment is inestimable. How to use scientific and technological means to prevent fire from unburned is an important issue.
How are drones used in Firefighting? We will talk about this below.
Advantages of drones used in Firefighting
The fire fighting drones have many advantages compared with traditional firefighting methods.
- Flexible. The weight of small UAVs is less than 100kg. People can control it by flight control. Since it is not restricted by traffic routes, it can replenish fire-extinguishing ammunition (fire-extinguishing bombs) and deliver rescue supplies (logistics) in time to provide reliable information for the command if the battery life is sufficient. Furthermore, the equipment carried by the UAV can be adjusted according to the needs, such as carrying out a special task and carrying the required equipment in a targeted manner. When performing multiple tasks, the equipped equipment will be integrated. So the UAVs can carry out the tasks simultaneously (coordinated control of UAV clusters).
- Comprehensive vision. The UAV can take a global picture of the target at high altitude, and can have a “panoramic view” of the ground situation. At the same time, it can realize over-the-horizon control through broadband and data link technology. According to the needs of the site, it can work from different angles, different distances, and different light conditions, so as to transmit fire information more accurately.
- Low cost. The manufacturing cost of the drone itself is cheaper than other firefighting equipment (such as fire trucks, fire helicopters, etc.). At the same time, the process of boarding is canceled. People can operate UAVs directly, so as to reduce time costs.
- Easy to use. Only 1-2 people are needed to complete this type of operation task. At present, many drone pilots such as drone professionals and social retraining personnel are required to obtain a legally recognized “drone driver’s license”.
Latest Technology
- Super-large load of 15Kg, ultra-long flight time of 30 minutes with a full load;
- Full carbon fiber structure, light weight;
- Fully autonomous flight, one-button take-off and landing, vertical take-off and landing, not limited by the venue;
- The deployment time is short, and it can take off within 5 minutes in case of emergency;
- Real-time video transmission, flight data retention for processing and analysis after the flight.
- It can be loaded with fire extinguishing bombs for high-rise fire extinguishing, forest fire extinguishing, etc.;
- Can be loaded with live ammunition for actual combat. According to the performance of the ammunition, the firing range of the projectile can reach 100m-3Km, the flight radius of the aircraft can reach 5Km, and the strike radius of the whole machine can reach 6-8Km.
In conclusion
Fire-fighting drones will develop towards a more intelligent clustering direction. For example, combined with Slam to realize fully autonomous program control, the on-site situation map can be constructed, and autonomous navigation and autonomous control can be realized without GPS; clustering, fire-fighting drones can Model assignment tasks, as shown in the schematic diagram.
We really hope that Firefighting drones will become more and more capable, doing their best to keep our firefighters less exposed to dangerous environments.
