PREVIEW

Picture a flying dragon that doesn’t breathe fire but instead extinguishes flames with jets of water.
Thanks to a team of Japanese researchers, this innovative firefighter robot, known as the Dragon Firefighter, eventually it join firefighting teams worldwide to tackle fires deemed too perilous for human intervention.
The design of this unconventional firefighter robot has been published in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI. Because it is released as Open Science, robotics experts globally are free to use the plans to construct their own Dragon Firefighters for the collective benefit.
“We present a prototype of a four-metre-long, remotely controllable flying firehose robot, engineered to safely and efficiently extinguish fires in buildings by directly approaching the fire sources,” stated joint corresponding author Dr Yuichi Ambe, an assistant professor at Osaka University.
A research team from Professor Satoshi Tadokoro's laboratory at Tohoku University initiated work on similar flying robots in 2016, with 11 researchers and students contributing to its ongoing development. Collaboration with Japanese firefighters occurred before and during development to better understand their requirements.
The Dragon Firefighter's firehose is propelled upward (flying at two meters above the ground) by eight controllable water jets spouting from its centre and head. The firehose, steered by a control unit in a wheeled cart behind, can change shape and be oriented towards flames. The cart is linked through a supply tube to a fire truck with a water reservoir of 14,000 liters.
The nozzles release water at a rate of 6.6 litres per second with a pressure of up to one megapascal. The hose’s tip incorporates a conventional and thermal imaging camera to locate the fire.
The Dragon Firefighter faced its trial by fire at the opening ceremony of the World Robot Summit 2020 (WRS2020) in September 2021 in Fukushima but improvements have now been made on its ability to fly and fight fires - raising hopes it could be extinguishing real fires soon.
Dr. Yu Yamauchi, an assistant professor at Akita Prefectural University and another corresponding author, said, “Since the demonstration at WRS2020, we have continued to work on improving our Dragon and have learned many new things.”
“For example, we found that the original passive dampening mechanism, which counters oscillations of the Dragon Firefighter’s body, was impractical: it took too long to prepare for flight. We also found that heat from fires can cause detrimental plastic deformation in outdoor applications of the corrugated tube that holds the water hose and electric cables.”
The study details various improvements, including enhanced waterproofing, a nozzle unit handling a wider range of net forces, and a better mechanism for channeling water flow. However, further developments are in progress.
“We estimate that it will take approximately 10 more years to deploy our robot in real-world firefighting scenarios,” stated Ambe.
“The primary challenge will be to extend its reach beyond 10 metres. Developing effective firefighting tactics tailored to this robot's unique capabilities will likewise be a critical aspect of further development.”