Design and Fabrication of Fire Fighting Robot

Project Title

Design and Fabrication of Fire Fighting Robot

Project Area of Specialization RoboticsProject Summary

Firefighting has long been a dangerous field with fire fighter’s life as well as other lives and property at stake, and there have been numerous and devastating losses because of a lack in technological advancement in this field. Fire incident is a disaster that can potentially cause the loss of life, property damage, and permanent disability to the affected victim. Firefighters are primarily tasked to handle fire incidents, but they are often exposed to higher risks when extinguishing the fire, especially in hazardous environments such as in nuclear power plant, petroleum refineries, and gas tanks. They are also faced with other difficulties, particularly if a fire occurs in narrow and restricted places, as it is necessary to explore the ruins of buildings and obstacles to extinguish the fire and save the victim. With high barriers and risks in fire extinguishment operations, technological innovations can be utilized to assist firefighting.  At this time, the current methods used in the firefighting process are inadequate and inefficient which rely heavily on humans who can make an error, no matter how extensive and well they have been trained. It is now becoming popular to use robots in most of the fields today which can increase work efficiency and ensures human safety. Similarly, in the firefighting field, robots will be used instead of humans to handle fire hazards.  This paper presents the development of a firefighting robot that can extinguish the fire without the need for firefighters to be exposed to unnecessary danger. The robot is designed to be compact in size than other conventional fire-fighting robots in order to ease small location entry for deeper reach to extinguish the fire in narrow space. We will be making an autonomous robot which will be able to locate fire using various sensors and extinguish it. The robot will be able to detect its own path overcoming all the obstacles in the path using sensors. Based on this data from sensors and user input, Robot will perform the task of extinguishing the fire.

Project Objectives

Our objective will be to make a robot which will be able to detect fire an extinguish it. This robot can evade obstacles, search and extinguish the fire. Furthermore, this robot can increase the productivity, safety, efficiency, and quality of the task given. The Robot will be more compact and more flexible compared to other robots. Another advantage of the robot will be its ability to enter the location with a small entrance or narrow space. FFR beta will be a prototype Robot with the capability of extinguishing the fire. It will make firefighters be on a safe side in case of a fire.

Project Implementation Method

FFR beta will be a prototype Robot with the capability of extinguishing the fire. The process is divided into three parts. The first part is on the mechanical schematics, followed by hardware description and finally programming design. All parts will be assembled together, and experiments will then be performed with optimal distance for FFR beta to extinguish the fire.

For Mechanical structure, we shall be using an all-terrain tank chassis which will provide us an extra benefit of moving our vehicle to those terrains where normal vehicles get stuck. The tyre is using a combination of gears and normal tyres in couple tide in a belt which will have shock suspension.

For hardware, the electronic components are vital in the development of Robot. It includes several types of sensors, microcontroller, DC motor with wheel, Water Nozzle and Water pump. There are flame and ultrasonic sensors as an input of the system, which feeds input data into a microcontroller that is connected with other components for output, Motor Driver will be used to start the movement of the gear motors which will take robot close to the destination. The flow of water/fire extinguisher is pumped by a pump through a high-pressure water nozzle.

For Software, we will be developing a coding scheme which will be making an interconnection between our input and output. Based on the input readings, the controller will be able to perform further procedures of movement and fire extinguishing.

Benefits of the Project

The robot will be a lifesaver in the field of fire fighting and will protect the lives and properties of people with its action of extinguishing the fire. It will also save the lives of firefighters. By use of such robots, fire identification and rescue activities can be done with higher security without placing firefighters at high risk and dangerous conditions. In other words, robots can reduce the need for firefighters to get into dangerous situations. Additionally, having a compact size and automatic control also allows the robot to be used when a fire occurs in small and narrow spaces with hazardous environments such as tunnels or nuclear power plants.  

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The robot will be able to detect a fire location, will be able to measure the distance from an obstacle, will be able to move by overcoming obstacles, will be able to extinguish the fire.

Additional:(might be included if possible) The robot might be giving feedback using a camera Robot might be controlled using an application (smartphone).

Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemType of Industry Others Technologies Artificial Intelligence(AI), RoboticsSustainable Development Goals Industry, Innovation and InfrastructureRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	60200
All terrain chassis	Miscellaneous	1	4000	4000
Sensors	Equipment	4	800	3200
Microcontroller	Equipment	1	6500	6500
Robotic arm	Equipment	1	7500	7500
Battery	Equipment	1	2500	2500
Encoder Motors	Equipment	4	2500	10000
Tools	Miscellaneous	5	400	2000
Water tank	Miscellaneous	1	500	500
Microcontroller Camera	Equipment	1	4500	4500
Microcontroller Shield	Equipment	1	4500	4500
Motor Drivers	Equipment	2	4500	9000
Microcontroller Accessories	Equipment	1	6000	6000