UCS1001 MEC Assignment #2: (Design) Summary & Reader Response (Analysis) draft 1

 Draft 1

Summary


The article "Fire fighting robots go autonomous" by Braxton (2021), discussed the capabilities of these particular robots and the benefits of these machines. With more than 350,000 American homes burning annually and climate change contributing to 10,000 active daily wildfires worldwide. Robots can offer some respite to firefighters entering blazing buildings or traversing steep mountains. Over 3000 Americans die from fires annually, which includes an average of 80 firefighters (Scientific American. 2019). With technological advancement, firefighters are now equipped with robots to aid their work. The Los Angeles City Fire Department can be seen using robots to assist them, one of the robots is the Robot System 3 (RS3). The $300,000 RS3 was funded by the American Firefighting Foundation, the unit is capable of blasting water 10 times the rate of a conventional fire hose, and has four cameras which can show where the water is being sprayed and thermal sensory capability that can detect victims. The LAFD assistant chief Wade White stated that " it has met some of these real-world mobility challenges and proved useful by dragging hose lines up steep hills and even pulling horses out of mud quagmires." With firefighting robots, it would increase the efficiency of the firefighter, while putting them at a lower risk of injury or death. 


One of the ways which these robots are able to aid the firefighters to be more efficient in their work is by improving their visibility. Currently, firefighters are limited to what they can see and information is being transmitted to them via radio from the headquarters, this causes a delay in their fight against fire as they are unable to get real-time updates. However, this will soon change as the drones that are being tested has “hazard mapping systems” that can give them “trusted information in real-time,” explained Andy Henson, vice president of artificial intelligence at Science Applications International Corp (SAIC). (Balch, J.K., Abatzoglou, J.T., Joseph, M.B. et al. 2022), examined that, in regards to tens of thousands of wildfires around the world, it was found that nighttime fires have increased by 7.2 percent since 2003. In the U.S., the rise has been 28 percent. Due to global warming, the temperature rises during the night, which reduces the moisture level the night air could previously hold, this effect was known as the “Vapor Pressure Deficit”. This effect will cause more wildfires to ignite during the night. Nolan, (R. H., de Dios, V. R., Boer, M. M., Caccamo, G., Goulden, M. L., & Bradstock, R. A. 2016).


In addition, another reason that the robots are able increase their efficiency is through being able to scale elevated places faster than the conventional method. Firefighters are required to fight wildfires on steep hills, thus, they are required to scale the forested hill to the fire while carrying all their gear while fighting adverse weather conditions. "The biggest challenges we face now are the strong winds and high temperatures. Also, the mountains are steep for firemen to climb up" (Yang, Fang, Zhang. 2020). These factors cause the firefighters to take a longer time to reach the locality and will be faced with fatigue once they begin fighting the fire. In order to tackle this issue, various researchers have conceptualise the idea of using swarms of autonomous drones capable of carrying a payload of 5 to 50 kilograms each, these drones would then fly in a grid formation to strategically put out the fire. Not only being able to scale up the steep areas but the drones can also be instantly deployed during the day or night due to them using a relocatable platform without requiring a nearby water source. In comparison to air/rotorcraft pilots and firefighters , these drones do not put the user's life at risk as they are fully autonomous.(Ausonio, E., Bagnerini, P., & Ghio, M. 2021)


However, there has been a major concern about utilise robots to fight fire. One of their main limitation is , the cost of developing such a robot which specialises in emergency operation. The reason why the cost for these robots is much steeper is due to their enhance specification, these specification includes, being weather and fire resistant, the maintenance cost, insurance and sensors. (Radu, V. T., Kristensen, A. S., & Mehmood, S. 2019)


In conclusion, firefighting robots definitely increase the efficiency of firefighters. Where time is of the essence in their work, and seconds could lead to a life and death difference. Not only able to aid the firefighters to have better visibility in the dark, and able to scale places with fire faster than conventional methods. Notedly, one of the obstacles faced is the interference. However, the pros outweighs the cons by a landslide, thus, proving that the firefighting robots have the potential to increase the efficiency of the firefighters while reducing their risk of getting injured or dying.

REFERENCES  


Ausonio, E., Bagnerini, P., & Ghio, M. (2021). Drone Swarms in Fire Suppression Activities: A Conceptual Framework. Drones, 5(1), 17. MDPI AG. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/drones5010017


Balch, J.K., Abatzoglou, J.T., Joseph, M.B. et al.(2022) Warming weakens the night-time barrier to global fire. Nature 602, 442–448 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04325-1 



Fialka, J., (2022). Wildfires on the rise, but new tech could help in the fight. E&E News. 

https://www.eenews.net/articles/wildfires-on-the-rise-but-new-tech-could-help-in-the-fight/


Little, J., (2022). Firefighting Robots Go Autonomous. Scientific American. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/firefighting-robots-go-autonomous/


News.cgtn.com. (2022). Efforts to fight forest fire continue in SW China. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-04-02/Efforts-to-fight-forest-fire-continue-in-SW-China-


Nolan, R. H., de Dios, V. R., Boer, M. M., Caccamo, G., Goulden, M. L., & Bradstock, R. A. (2016). Predicting dead fine fuel moisture at regional scales using vapour pressure deficit from MODIS and gridded weather data. Remote sensing of environment, 174, 100-108. https://escholarship.org/content/qt3w6352tb/qt3w6352tb_noSplash_c1e8666ce00d39145d027ac71e435938.pdf


Radu, V. T., Kristensen, A. S., & Mehmood, S. (2019). Use of drones for firefighting operations (Doctoral dissertation, University Aalborg). https://projekter.aau.dk/projekter/files/294663864/Master_Thesis__Vlad_Tiberiu_Radu__RISK4_11.pdf

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