What role can drones play in firefighting?

First, drone concept and technical advantages

Fire UAV

1, drone concept

UAV UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) unmanned aircraft for short, is owned by radio remote control device and process control unmanned aircraft, including unmanned helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, multi-rotor aircraft, and unmanned airship No one umbrella aircraft and so on. In terms of structure, a complete drone system mainly includes the onboard part and the ground control part. As shown in Fig. 1 , the onboard part mainly includes the autonomous flight control system, attitude sensor system and power system of the drone, and the ground The control part mainly includes remote control systems and data receiving systems.

2. Technical advantages of drones

(1) Perform high-risk tasks. Drones can replace human pilots to perform high-risk missions, reduce driver training costs, and reduce the risk of potential human casualties.

(2) Perform human physiological characteristics limiting tasks. Compared to human pilots, drones, as machines, can exceed the limits of human physiology and perform long-term, highly mobile tasks.

(3) Perform low cost and diversity tasks. Because drones do not need to be equipped with a life support system, they can be used in place of other costly equipment to drill down into the fire or rescue field to perform a variety of tasks.

(4) The task is flexible and easy to operate. The personnel who operate the drone do not need to experience the scene and conduct comprehensive combat training. At the same time, the drone can take off and land on various platforms, with the characteristics of flexible operation.

Second, the application of UAV in the area of ​​firefighting and rescue

1, on-site investigation

(1) Fire Investigation

The fire environment has many uncertainties. For large open fire areas, it is difficult to determine the actual conditions on the scene with observation and experience alone. Therefore, drones equipped with various investigation equipments are required to conduct preliminary observation and investigation of the fire to determine the fire point. Location, whether trapped personnel, dangerous information, etc. In the reconnaissance module's working mode, the UAV can effectively assess the fire damage situation in real time, and can obtain clear images of some key parts. At the same time, ground personnel can also use base stations for suspicious parts and key areas in high-rise buildings. The console controls the drone for all-round investigation, and it acquires important information such as the location of the fire point, the burning area, and the spread of the fire at the first time.

(2) Monitoring of disasters such as earthquakes and mudslides

In some disaster-affected disaster situations such as earthquakes and mudslides, through on-site surveying and mapping, it is possible to initially assess disaster loss rates and grasp the development trend of disasters in a timely manner. This can provide key information for the rapid evacuation of on-site personnel and operational support for disasters and provide reconstruction work for the disaster. With strong protection, in addition, data from the UAV can be used to develop a disaster database to provide basis and guidance for disaster early warning.

Also, thanks to the rapid development of remote sensing technology in recent years, China has established a 1: 50000 topographic map of digital elevation model (D talElevati0nM0de1) database, earthquakes, landslides disaster, the UAV can be equipped with mapping equipment, the establishment of The elevation model of the site forms statistical data of topographic and geomorphological deformation, quickly determines the damage situation of the earthquake, searches for a safe and rapid rescue route, and predicts the arrival time of emergency rescue forces.

2, personnel search

In the mountain accident rescue, an important reason why personnel cannot be accurately located is that due to terrain restrictions in the mountainous region, it is impossible to establish a perfect mobile base station network in the mountainous area, resulting in people trapped in the mountainous area unable to call for help through the mobile phone. In addition, unlike other rescue areas in open areas, the vegetation in the mountainous areas is lush and it is difficult to use cameras or infrared equipment to search for trapped people under the jungle. According to this, a method of using human-powered UAVs to carry pseudo-base stations for personnel search and rescue is proposed . Using a small mobile phone communication base station equipped with a drone, the base station can search for mobile phone signals at any time. In this way, trapped personnel do not need to pay attention to search and rescue drones flying over the sky, and do not need to send out rescue information in a short time, which can reduce traditions. The human and material resources needed for manual search can also save and shorten rescue time.

3, personnel evacuation

The first-site firefighters need to quickly determine the types of accidents, determine the hazards on the site, determine whether to carry out the evacuation work according to the actual situation on the site, and if evacuation is required, they should be based on the fire area, the spread of fire, and the on-site wind speed and direction. Determine the evacuation radius and direction of the personnel. If it is a nighttime environment, it is necessary to provide basic lighting and voice guidance for the evacuation crowds to prevent the masses from accidentally gathering at the bright and bright accident scenes, resulting in greater security risks. Therefore, the drone can be equipped with a lighting indicator and a broadcast guidance system to directly guide personnel in high-rise buildings to the correct floor. If it is to evacuate people on the ground, it can also be equipped with a drone camera system. Coordinate the entire evacuation.

4, emergency communications

Most fire scenes require in-depth internal search and rescue work. For some complex high-rise buildings and large-area rescue environments, on-site communications are often unable to be effectively guaranteed. This poses a serious safety hazard for the rescue work. Due to its flexible operational control capabilities, drones can be equipped with relevant communications relay equipment to establish communication links in the field in the shortest possible time, automatically or wirelessly remotely adjust frequency, transmit alarm alarm information, and even enter the fire scene. Relief personnel's empty call pressure information, through multiple drone devices to locate the fire site personnel and share location information, or equipped with on-site commander-specific drones, the commander through the drone power scheduling, coordination of the entire site of the force deploy.

5, personnel transport

In the area of ​​firefighting and rescue, the drone personnel transportation function is also worth considering. For example, in some rural remote areas, due to road traffic conditions, the first power is often unable to reach the site quickly. Therefore, it is possible to adopt a battle formation mode in which a combat detachment is equipped with a transport drone. After the fire occurs, the rear Rapidly deploy transport drones to bring relevant portable equipment to the scene to carry out effective prior fire control and rescue operations to prevent further spread of fire and quickly rescue the lives of trapped people.

UAVs can also replace the role of life-saving tosses in emergency and dangerous areas. They can carry guided ropes to and from rescuers and rescuers at disaster sites to establish a solid and stable rescue system. In addition, in some emergency floods and disasters, drones can also carry life-saving equipment, instead of rescue personnel for fixed-point throwing, to quickly rescue people in danger.

Third, drone improvement and function development

1, for professional surveying, detection, detection, communication equipment improvements

In order to be equipped with different types of meta man-machines and adapt to different mission requirements, related instruments carried by drones should be further improved, mainly including the following aspects:

(1) Further reduce the size and weight to increase the number of UAV's equipment and equipment and increase the drone's life time.

(2) Unify various software and hardware interfaces to facilitate different types of equipment to connect different types of UAVs, and at the same time, strengthen the unity of data transmission and software parameter settings.

(3) Increase the degree of integration of various equipment and equipment, for example, audio and video and infrared detectors that need to be used at the same time can be integrated, and sensors such as temperature, height, and pressure of the detection environment can be integrated.

2. Fire and explosion prevention and control performance improvement

Recently, at the world's largest oil show, AKA, a multi-explosion-proof unmanned aerial vehicle demonstrated by China National Airhawks Technology Co., Ltd. , attracted a large number of exhibitors. This drone adopts advanced electrical isolation technology and new explosion-proof batteries and motors to avoid sparks during the work process. When designing drones for firefighting, it can draw on related design and manufacturing technologies to further enhance drones. The fireproof and explosion-proof performance meets the needs of harsh environments and dangerous places.

3, load and endurance improvement

The drones that are put into use are mostly powered by lithium batteries. One drawback is that they have shorter battery life and lighter load. The St. Petersburg Fire Brigade University has developed a fire-fighting drone capable of vertical take-off and mooring with cables . Theoretically, this drone can achieve continuous air-conditioners around the clock, thanks to the mooring cable, which is a drone. Can achieve up to 600 kg of load, but the cable length and weight restrictions, the drone can only be used in a small range, mainly for on-site environmental monitoring and communications protection.

4. Linkage with communication command network and geographic information system

Thanks to the informatization construction of our country's fire brigade, the grass-roots fire brigade is equipped with multiple types of fire command systems and is equipped with a practical fire fighting and rescue command box. The application of GIS (Geographic Information System) at the grass-roots command center is also a first-line firefighting and rescue work. It plays an important role in safeguarding, and firefighting drones must be put into practical use, and linkage with such software platforms and systems must be strengthened. It is possible to directly operate UAVs on the platform interface and share the data information collected by drones. Utilizing drones for communications networking and power dispatch to enhance the applicability and portability of drones.

5. Linkage with other fire fighting forces

Firefighting drones should also strengthen linkage with other firefighting forces to eliminate potential safety hazards and strengthen the use of other equipment and equipment, for example, to provide basis for accurate positioning of high-grade vehicles, and to evaluate building structures at large-scale demolition sites. When the large displacement of the building structure changes, provide an alarm. At the same time, at the scene of dangerous search and rescue, drones can also cooperate with search and rescue dogs, issue instructions, and transmit information to further protect the lives of rescue workers.

The information in this article comes from the Internet and was reorganized and edited by China Rescue Equipment Network.