Drone fights fires by dropping flaming balls
The thought of a fire-starting robot would normally have us fleeing in terror, but we’ll make an exception for this one. Researchers are developing a drone, the Unmanned Aerial System for Fire Fighting (UAS-FF), that helps contain and prevent fires by dropping ping pong-sized flaming balls. If you need to burn grass before it fuels an uncontrolled blaze, you just program the drone to drop its chemically-ignited cargo in a specific pattern — you don’t have to send in a costly aircraft or face the risks of starting fires on the ground. It’ll be a while before you see UAS-FF in service, but it’s already nice to see a drone that helps firefighting instead of getting in the way.
[Image credit: Craig Chandler/University Communications]
Via: Phys.org
Source: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
AIVAnet 