FireFighting Robots
OwnerMark Haleyinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Device, system, and method for Firefighting Robots™ which can fight fires, wildfires, forest fires, building and/or house fires and general fires by precisely applying water and/or fire retardant to a blaze by using sensors to pinpoint the direction, range, and temperature of the fire in order to precisely point the nozzle on the hose to the fire. This could also be a Skydiving Robot which jumps into remote wildfires, or it could be a robot arm or robotic nozzle with at least two degrees of freedom, for a drone, helicopter, or fire truck, with sensors and networking which could relay the fire location, range, and temperature to the robot to ensure the optimal use of the water and/or fire retardant.
Claims17
A system for Skydiving Robots™ to skydive like humans using off-the-shelf or customized parachutes where the robots grasp the chute's toggles which open and then control the chute and then move their arms up and down like humans to turn, steer and land near the target, where the jump can begin at up to or over 30,000 feet above ground level (AGL) with a system comprising:
- human like hands for the robots to permit grasping the chute's toggles which open the chute and steer and operate the parachute and optionally to operate weapons for military missions;
- and
- a Global Positioning Sensor (GPS) and other sensors including the implied wind speed, which tracks the skydive and indicates the Skydiving Robot's position relative to the target to permit the robot to steer and land near the target using arm and hand movements to control the chute's control toggles similar to a real skydiver where the chute's movement is controlled by a jumper moving their arms up and down which turns and controls and sets the speed of the parachute;
- and
- a computer vision camera system which permits the robot to find and pull the toggle which opens the parachute and control toggles for the parachute and then guide the humanoid hand to grasp the toggle and simply pull it down and up with the robot's arm movements to steer, turn and control the chute's speed and flare and land and during emergencies find cutaway and pull the reserve parachute;
- and
- use a technique during freefall called tracking, where skydivers change their body position to turn, or move horizontally, which can be practiced using a simulator and/or real jumps permitting robots to precisely land and if the robot, like a human, is in an aerodynamically stable position there is no horizontal movement however if the skydiver puts their arms next to their body and their legs together straight out like a guided missile, they could move up to or over 180 mph horizontally and up to or over 300 mph vertically.
A method for Skydiving Robots to skydive like humans using off-the-shelf or customized parachutes where the robots have cameras which permit them to find and grasp the control toggles for parachutes and then move their arms and humans up and down like humans to control the toggles which operate the parachute allowing it to turn and glide and land near the target, where the jump can begin at up to or over 30,000 feet above ground level (AGL) and where the robots can land ahead of humans on skydives to scout ahead on the landing before the human skydivers land and the similar ability to find and grasp weapons and then aim and fire these weapons at the enemy.
A system for autonomous Firefighting Robots comprising:
- a water pump, electrical power, a source of water and/or fire retardant;
- LIDAR sensors, to identify obstacles;
- Imaging Infrared sensors to calculate the direction, range and temperature of the fire in order to precisely point fixed and/or moveable nozzles with fixed and/or variable sprays towards the fire where redundancy of sensor data confirms the targeted fire information, where the initial data on the fire's GPS location could be from satellite data which can be within 1 minute of the start of the fire with an accuracy of 30 meters or better and then as the drone or robot autonomously approaches the fire the final precise location of the fire is provide by the sensors on the robot or drone and the drone or robot autonomously goes to that location and puts out the fire and these images juxtaposed over time indicate relative movement and range where this data indicates when to turn the water on and the optimal direction to point the hose and nozzles with the water, especially at the start of a fire to ensure it does not spread, thereby ensuring that the minimal amount of water is used to precisely extinguish the flames;
- and for the fixed nozzles the sensors would direct the drone to position itself precisely over the fire, and the sensors could be either part of a separate pumping system where the fire information is relayed to the robot via a Wi-Fi network, or the sensors and the water system could part of the robot and the robot could be a humanoid robot, or if the robot was on a drone, helicopter, or fire truck then to save weight it could be robotic arms or robotic nozzles with at least two degrees of freedom and fixed and/or variable spray nozzles pointed in multiple directions and the humanoid robot, which could skydive to the fire, and the robotics arms and/or nozzles could be used alone or together, and this precise targeting information on directing the water could even be relayed to human firefighters to ensure they fight fires more effectively.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.