Development of a Low-Cost Autonomous Fire Detection and Suppression Robot

Fire accidents in the home, industrial and commercial environment can result in massive loss of human life and property. It is of the utmost importance to detect and extinguish fires at the very earliest stage to minimize the damage and the resultant harm. The paper presents an Arduino based fire fighting robot which is capable of detecting the direction of the fire, moving towards it and using a water pump to put out the fire. The robot proposed in this work comprises of an Arduino UNO controller, three flame sensors (one at the left, one at the center and one at the right) to identify the location of the fire in the three different directions, an L298N motor driver and four DC geared motors for movement of the robot (forward, backward, left and right), a relay module to switch on the water pump and a water pump to cut and extinguish the fire. The flame sensors provide the data regarding the direction of the fire to the Arduino which then makes the decision as to how the robot should move based on the sensor readings. If the fire is detected on the left or the right side of the robot, the robot will move in the direction of the detected fire. If the fire is detected at the front or the center of the robot, the robot will move forward and the water pump will be turned on via the relay. If none of the sensors detect a fire signal, the robot will stop and the water pump will be switched off. The information regarding the operation of the robot (sensor readings, robot movement and pump status) is sent to the Arduino Serial Monitor for the user to view. The proposed fire fighting robot can provide a low cost embedded system level solution for the basic autonomous detection and suppression of fires and can also help in reducing the human effort required for fire suppression at the initial stage. It is possible to add features such as a Wi-Fi module to transmit the information about the fire status and the location of the robot over the internet. Obstacle detection and fire suppression based on distance can also be incorporated into the robot.