Firefighters could soon have a formidable ally in their daunting task of entering buildings set ablaze: specialized drones that can handle the heat from live flames and relay visuals to help them assess the situation.
These have been in the works for years at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology research institute in Dübendorf (EMPA). That project gave birth to the FireDrone, whose prototype successfully braved extreme temperatures of up to 392 °F (200 °C) back in 2023. That's a huge step up from the 104 °F (40 °C) that conventional drones can withstand.
It was all thanks to the use of an ultra-light, porous gel with air pockets that surrounded the drone's electronics in an insulating layer, along with heat-resistant plastic.
The team has since updated the FireDrone's insulating layer, switching from a glass fiber-reinforced composite structure to a pure polyimide aerogel that can be cast in any desired shape, so all of the drone's electronic components can be encased with a single piece of the protective material.
In addition, the remote-controlled aircraft now has an internal temperature management system that monitors the internals and switches on an active cooling system to ensure they don't overheat. That should allow it to withstand 392 °F heat for roughly 10 minutes at a time.
The FireDrone also has cameras and sensors to beam high-resolution thermal images in real time to a remote control with a large display for multiple people to review simultaneously. Its flight capabilities have been tuned to enable maneuvering indoors, whether that's a building, a tunnel, or an industrial facility; this is supported by pilot assistance and localization systems that can operate even without GPS.
While the most obvious application for equipment like this is rescuing people inside burning buildings, it'll also come in handy when tackling industrial fires, especially those with furnaces or chemical refineries that can take up to several days to cool down enough so that people can safely inspect them.
That can not only help mitigate damage and losses to these facilities, but also minimize the risk that firefighters have to undertake when examining these spaces. They could have these drones fly ahead of them into complex structures like apartment buildings and parking garages, and help give them an overview of what's going on inside through clouds of smoke. That can help them tackle incidents more quickly, and spend less time exposed to hazardous materials and fumes, and reduce the chances of encountering fatal explosions.
Over the last couple of years, the FireDrone concept has now evolved from a research project to a product being developed by an EMPA spinoff company, so it can be commercialized. To that end, the eponymous firm says the unmanned aerial vehicle has been extensively tested at a training ground, and a Swiss cement plant.
The drone is being designed to allow for equipping it with additional sensing gear to do things like sniff out gases produced by fires, and measure outside temperatures. It'll also be supported by a portable thermally insulated docking-and-maintenance station that the drone can land on after a flight and prep for its next one.
The company is also working on ways to integrate this station into fire trucks, and developing software to distill insights and reports from the drone's data. That could make firefighting a whole lot safer and more predictable, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.
Source: EMPA
