Firefighter Drone Flies and Crawls Walls to Tackle Skyscraper Fires (VIDEO)

First Posted: Jan 19, 2016 09:56 AM EST

Scientists have created a firefighter drone that flies and can crawl up walls. The new robot could be huge when it comes to battling fires in skyscrapers and other tall buildings.

Skyscraper fires are particularly difficult to contain because of their ability to spread rapidly in high-occupant density spaces and the challenge of fighting fires in the buildings' complex vertical structure. Accessibility to skyscrapers at the time of the fire is limited, and it's hard to assess the initial situation.

That's why researchers decided to create an unmanned aerial vehicle, named the Fireproof Aerial RObot System (FAROS) to help with these fires. This machine has the ability to detect fires in skyscrapers, search the inside of a building, and transfer data in real time from fire scenes to a ground station.

The movements of FAROS rely on a quadrotor system. However, it can freely change its flight mode into a spider's crawling on walls, and vice versa. This facilitates unimpeded navigation in the labyrinth of narrow spaces filled with debris and rubble inside the blazing building.

The drone uses a 2D laser scanner, an altimeter and an Inertia Measurement Unit sensor in order to navigate autonomously. With the localization result and using a thermal-imaging camera to recognize objects or people inside a building, the FAROS can also detect and find the fire-ignition point by employing dedicated image-processing technology.

"As cities become more crowded with skyscrapers and super structures, fire incidents in these high-rise buildings are life-threatening massive disasters," said Hyun Myung, one of the researchers, in a news release. "The FAROS can be aptly deployed to the disaster site at an early stage of such incidents to minimize the damage and maximize the safety and efficiency of rescue mission."

Want to learn more? Check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube.