A Sensor Ontology For The Domain Of Firefighting Robots

Fires create thousands of dollars in damage and thousands of deaths each year. Firefighters risk their lives everyday and are often killed in action. Firefighting robots may be able to reduce the loss of lives and damage due to fires. Robots are often used for redundant tasks that require the consistency and efficiency of a machine. They are especially optimal for tasks that require strength that exceeds that of a typical human being or for environments that are hazardous to people. Robots\u27 metallic exteriors are far more durable and easier to replace than flesh and blood, thus they are ideal for fighting fire that may be unreachable or too dangerous for humaning beings. Firefighting robots are most often shaped like tanks and are equipped with fire extinguishers, sensors, and cameras. The robots are typically operated via remote control and lack autonomy. Because of the volatile nature of fires, it is difficult for software engineers to create algorithms to make firefighting robots more autonomous. Ontologies are commonly used for sharing domain information and structuring and analyzing data. This study proposes using an ontology that is designed specifically for a firefighting robot programmed to rescue a human in danger in order to make a decision making algorithm. The methodology uses ontological tools to build the ontology. A decision-making algorithm is created using the information that is stored in the ontology. The study is evaluated on the accuracy rate of making the correct decision. It is also evaluated on if the decision-making algorithm performs significantly better than decisions chosen at random

Battery Management Systems for Firefighting Robots Using Simulation Modeling

The battery management systems for firefighting robots are intended to enable firefighting robots to increase operating time and to effectively extinguish a fire while managing the amount of water in a fire hose and cooperating sub-robots. To increase the operating time by managing the traction power of the firefighting robot, a novel automatic T-valve device and sub-robots were designed and added to fire hoses. The main goal of the battery management systems for firefighting robots is to lower the weight of the fire hose and to increase traction power by working with sub-robots. Whenever a firefighting robot wants to move to other spaces, the battery management systems will remove the water from fire hoses and draw the empty fire hoses by using sub-robots; thus, they are able to help the main firefighting robot to carry lighter hoses and to operate for a longer time. As a result, the battery management systems for firefighting robots enable the firefighting robot to successfully extinguish a fire for a longer time and to efficiently reach the desired destinations. The demonstration will be modeled by a computer simulation program, called AnyLogic®, which can model a fire and fire areas and apply the battery management systems to robots in each fire site

Fireground location understanding by semantic linking of visual objects and building information models

This paper presents an outline for improved localization and situational awareness in fire emergency situations based on semantic technology and computer vision techniques. The novelty of our methodology lies in the semantic linking of video object recognition results from visual and thermal cameras with Building Information Models (BIM). The current limitations and possibilities of certain building information streams in the context of fire safety or fire incident management are addressed in this paper. Furthermore, our data management tools match higher-level semantic metadata descriptors of BIM and deep-learning based visual object recognition and classification networks. Based on these matches, estimations can be generated of camera, objects and event positions in the BIM model, transforming it from a static source of information into a rich, dynamic data provider. Previous work has already investigated the possibilities to link BIM and low-cost point sensors for fireground understanding, but these approaches did not take into account the benefits of video analysis and recent developments in semantics and feature learning research. Finally, the strengths of the proposed approach compared to the state-of-the-art is its (semi -)automatic workflow, generic and modular setup and multi-modal strategy, which allows to automatically create situational awareness, to improve localization and to facilitate the overall fire understanding

A survey on robotic technologies for forest firefighting: Applying drone swarms to improve firefighters’ efficiency and safety

Forest firefighting missions encompass multiple tasks related to prevention, surveillance, and extinguishing. This work presents a complete survey of firefighters on the current problems in their work and the potential technological solutions. Additionally, it reviews the efforts performed by the academy and industry to apply different types of robots in the context of firefighting missions. Finally, all this information is used to propose a concept of operation for the comprehensive application of drone swarms in firefighting. The proposed system is a fleet of quadcopters that individually are only able to visit waypoints and use payloads, but collectively can perform tasks of surveillance, mapping, monitoring, etc. Three operator roles are defined, each one with different access to information and functions in the mission: Mission commander, team leaders, and team members. These operators take advantage of virtual and augmented reality interfaces to intuitively get the information of the scenario and, in the case of the mission commander, control the drone swarmThis research received no external fundin

Firefighting Remote Exploration Device II

The need for “smart” recovery for disasters is at the forefront. Firefighters operating in indoor firegrounds are put at risk by the constantly changing environment. The use of robotics in firefighting can assist firefighters by informing them about different aspects of the fireground, such as the structural layout and temperature distribution. Taking inspiration from a design devised by a previous WPI Major Qualifying Project, our team prototyped a heat, water, and impact-resistant robot capable of navigating around obstacles in the fireground and returning relevant real-time data

Multi-robot team formation control in the GUARDIANS project

Purpose The GUARDIANS multi-robot team is to be deployed in a large warehouse in smoke. The team is to assist firefighters search the warehouse in the event or danger of a fire. The large dimensions of the environment together with development of smoke which drastically reduces visibility, represent major challenges for search and rescue operations. The GUARDIANS robots guide and accompany the firefighters on site whilst indicating possible obstacles and the locations of danger and maintaining communications links. Design/methodology/approach In order to fulfill the aforementioned tasks the robots need to exhibit certain behaviours. Among the basic behaviours are capabilities to stay together as a group, that is, generate a formation and navigate while keeping this formation. The control model used to generate these behaviours is based on the so-called social potential field framework, which we adapt to the specific tasks required for the GUARDIANS scenario. All tasks can be achieved without central control, and some of the behaviours can be performed without explicit communication between the robots. Findings The GUARDIANS environment requires flexible formations of the robot team: the formation has to adapt itself to the circumstances. Thus the application has forced us to redefine the concept of a formation. Using the graph-theoretic terminology, we can say that a formation may be stretched out as a path or be compact as a star or wheel. We have implemented the developed behaviours in simulation environments as well as on real ERA-MOBI robots commonly referred to as Erratics. We discuss advantages and shortcomings of our model, based on the simulations as well as on the implementation with a team of Erratics.</p

Securing communication within the harms model for use with firefighting robots

Humans and robots must work together in increasingly complex networks to achieve a common goal. In this research, firefighting robots are a part of a larger, decentralized system of humans, agents, robots, machines, and sensors (HARMS). Although communication in a HARMS model has been utilized in previous research, this new study looks at the security considerations of the communications layer of the HARMS model. A network attack known as a man-in-the-middle attack is successfully demonstrated in this paper. Then, a secure communications protocol is proposed to help provide confidentiality and authentication of HARMS actors. This research is applied to any system that utilizes a HARMS network, including firefighting robots, to help ensure malicious entities cannot exploit communications by system actors. Instead, system actors that confirm their identity can communicate securely in a decentralized way for indistinguishable task completion. The results of this experiment are successful, indicating that secure communication can prevent man-in-the-middle attacks with minor differences in operation

Architecture and Applications of IoT Devices in Socially Relevant Fields

Number of IoT enabled devices are being tried and introduced every year and there is a healthy competition among researched and businesses to capitalize the space created by IoT, as these devices have a great market potential. Depending on the type of task involved and sensitive nature of data that the device handles, various IoT architectures, communication protocols and components are chosen and their performance is evaluated. This paper reviews such IoT enabled devices based on their architecture, communication protocols and functions in few key socially relevant fields like health care, farming, firefighting, women/individual safety/call for help/harm alert, home surveillance and mapping as these fields involve majority of the general public. It can be seen, to one's amazement, that already significant number of devices are being reported on these fields and their performance is promising. This paper also outlines the challenges involved in each of these fields that require solutions to make these devices reliableComment: 1