Firefighting quadcopter passes shipboard navigation test

In a demonstration aboard a former US Navy ship, a small quadcopter developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute and spin-off company Sensible Machines flew autonomously through dark, smoke-filled compartments to map fires and locate victims.

Last autumn’s demonstration, part of a US Office of Naval Research (ONR) project called Damage Control Technologies for the 21^st Century (DC-21), showed that a small drone can operate in the confined spaces inside a ship to gather situational information to guide firefighting and rescue efforts.

‘With the micro-flyer, we wanted to show that it could autonomously navigate through the narrow hallways and doors – even in dense fire smoke – and locate fires,’ said Thomas McKenna, ONR’s DC-21 program manager. ‘It succeeded at all those tasks.’

As part of the DC-21 concept, information gathered by the micro-flyer would be relayed to a large humanoid robot, the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot (SAFFiR), that would work with human firefighters to suppress fires and evacuate casualties.