Drone Swarms in Fire Suppression Activities: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

The recent huge technological development of unmanned aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can provide breakthrough means of fighting wildland fires. We propose an innovative forest firefighting system based on the use of a swarm of hundreds of UAVs able to generate a continuous flow of extinguishing liquid on the fire front, simulating the effect of rain. Automatic battery replacement and extinguishing liquid refill ensure the continuity of the action. We illustrate the validity of the approach in Mediterranean scrub first computing the critical water flow rate according to the main factors involved in the evolution of a fire, then estimating the number of linear meters of active fire front that can be extinguished depending on the number of drones available and the amount of extinguishing fluid carried. A fire propagation cellular automata model is also employed to study the evolution of the fire. Simulation results suggest that the proposed system can provide the flow of water required to fight low-intensity and limited extent fires or to support current forest firefighting techniques.

WILD HOPPER Prototype for Forest Firefighting

“…Besides all their technical limitations, their capital and operational costs are extremely high. Although, through our research, we found that almost all the previous research work on this field full into one of main three categories respectively, theoretical way of research as in [8], practical way put with limited resources by using single lightweight UAV, focusing their work on sensing and thermal cameras as in [9], and finally using a swarm of multi mini-drones as in [10]. In [9] the researchers stated that the main requirements for such a system can be considered in all-weather suitability, in the mean of day and night functionality, selflocalization using a common terrain reference model for automatic geo-localization, navigational autonomy by using GPS and IMU, cooperation behavior with other UAVs, gathering the payload to be only for sensors (fire perception purposes), and finally the availability by equipping the communication devices onboard.…”

“…In addition, Elena Ausonio et. al [10] stated that their system depends on the use of a swarm of hundreds of UAVs to simulate the rain effect as shown in "Fig. 2".…”

Mempersiapkan Pengendalian Kebakaran Hutan di Masa Datang: Teknologi dan Inovasi Baru

“…These technologies have the potential to be harnessed for various aspects of forest fire management. Ausonio et al, (2021) proposed a conceptual framework using a swarm of drone's system for forest fire fighting in a Mediterranean scrub landscape, while Aydin et al, (2019) proposed using drones for dropping fire extinguished balls for fire suppression. Drones are versatile platforms and can be equipped with multiple sensors and devices (Alkaff et al, 2020).…”

Computationally-Efficient Distributed Algorithms of Navigation of Teams of Autonomous UAVs for 3D Coverage and Flocking

“…Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become a popular choice in this area to form MWSNs especially in places inaccessible by ground vehicles. In general, multi-UAV systems have been emerging in various applications such as precision agriculture [9][10][11][12][13], aerial manipulation and transportation [14][15][16][17][18], search and rescue [14,19,20], firefighting [21], surveillance and monitoring [22,23], mapping and exploration [24][25][26], etc.…”