Fire-Fighting Robot Using Arduino: Flame Detection, Approach and Water Suppression

Small fires are easiest to put out in their first few minutes, but that is exactly when nobody may be nearby. This paper presents a low-cost mobile robot that finds a flame on its own, drives up to it and sprays water on it, completing the full detect-approach-extinguish cycle without human input. The robot detects fire with three infrared (IR) flame-sensor modules (YG1006 phototransistor with LM393 comparator) mounted in a divergent array facing left, centre and right. An Arduino Uno reads the three outputs and steers a four-motor differential-drive chassis through an L298N H-bridge. When the flame is close enough, the robot stops at a safe distance, switches on a 3-6 V submersible pump through a transistor driver and sweeps the nozzle across 180 degrees with an SG90 servo. In indoor trials with small open flames, the robot detected flames from 10 cm to 65 cm away, covered approximately 120 degrees in front of the chassis, reacted to a change in flame direction in under 50 ms, stopped about 22 cm from the source and extinguished the flame in 4.5 s to 6.0 s. The main limitation found was false triggering by strong sunlight. The prototype shows that inexpensive, widely available components are sufficient for early-stage, localized fire suppression indoors. The full project report is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24017288