Japanese scientists have developed a “flying dragon” robot, created to put out fires at a distance and it sounds like something straight from a cyberpunk anime.
Fighting fires is a dangerous job. Firefighters need to go through extensive training and load themselves down with heavy equipment like breathing masks and protective suits to tackle deadly blazes that claim property and lives. Japanese researchers believe they have developed a new tool that could help fight fires from a distance, and it comes in the shape of a dragon.
Flying robotic fire-hose
The Dragon Firefighter is essentially aroboticfire-hose that uses eight controllable jets of water which it uses to propel itself upwards, flying at roughly two meters above the ground. The construction of the Dragon Firefighter means it can be made to change shape and thus point its water jets toward flames.
Control of the robot is done via a control unit located in a wheeled cart that follows behind the Dragon Firefighter and is connected to a supply reservoir that can hold up to 14,000 liters of water. The nozzles are capable of projecting water at a rate of 6.6 liters per second at a pressure of up to one Megapascal. The ‘head’ of the dragon contains a regularcameraand a thermal imaging camera to allow it to locate fires.
The blueprints for the Dragon Firefighter have been published in a journal calledFrontiers in Robotics and AI, as well as through Open Science. This means that scientists from all over the world can use the plans to build their own version of the Dragon Firefighter, and potentially make improvements to help keep firefighting crews safer.
Rebecca Hills-Duty was a Tech Writer on Dexerto’s UK Team, specializing in PC components, VR, AMD, Nvidia and Intel. She has previously written for UploadVR and The Escapist, hosts a weekly show on RadioSEGA and has an obsession with retro gaming.
