An autonomous ground robot to support firefighters' interventions in indoor emergencies

Abstract

Intervention teams act in hostile scenarios where reducing mission times and accidentrisks is critical. In these situations, the availability of accurate information about theenvironment plays a key role in ensuring the well‐being of rescuers and victims. Thisinformation required to plan the interventions in indoor emergencies encompasses thelocation of fires and the presence of dangerous gases. Robotics and remote sensingtechnologies can help emergency teams to obtain this information in real‐time withoutexposing themselves. Additionally, the accurate simulation of the environments allows theteams to plan their interventions, creating routes to safely access the affected areas andevacuate the victims. This article presentsa robotic solution developed to satisfy thedemands of intervention teams. More specifically, it describes an autonomous groundrobot that can obtain real‐time location and environmental data from indoor fires, as wellas a simulator that reproduces these emergencyscenarios and facilitates mission planning.In this way, emergency teams can know the conditions in the scenario before, during, andafter the intervention. Thus, risks are minimized by improving their situational awarenessand reducing their exposure times during the mission. The system has been developedand validated in collaboration with the end‐users and under realistic harsh environments.During these experiments, the robot was used to detect fire sources and cold smoke andprovide environmental information to firefighters. Additionally, the simulator providedalternative routes for accessing and exiting the scene faster and safer by dodgingpotentially dangerous areas.