UMThinking

The aim is to research a drone-based firefighting support system for turntable ladder operations by fire departments based on a cooperative, semi-automated approach. The need for this arises from repeatedly documented cases in which firefighting operations from the turntable ladder basket were inaccurate and therefore ineffective.

As a solution, the UMDenken consortium is pursuing drone-based monitoring to support the extinguishing work. The drone acts as a freely positionable eye in space for the turntable ladder and enables the exact 3D position of the source of the fire to be determined with its sensor data. The research challenges are to navigate the drone autonomously in the vicinity of obstacles under the influence of smoke and water vapor, to determine the position of the source of the fire from different, changing perspectives and under adverse environmental conditions, to model the extinguishing jet and to enable precise, semi-autonomous targeting - even under zero visibility in the turntable ladder cage. The jet detection on images from the drone together with sensor data from the extinguishing monitor and the turntable ladder allow the range and location of the jet to be predicted despite environmental influences, such as wind, and the jet to be directed proactively in the next step. The automation of the drone and the turntable ladder's water cannon simplifies the handling of the system in line with operational requirements and thus provides a low-threshold offer for its application in practice.

13N16810

• Dortmund Fire Department
• Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Institute for Computer Science VI - Autonomous Intelligent Systems
• Fachhochschule Dortmund, Institute for the Digitization of Working and Living Environments
• Magirus GmbH
• Werl Fire Brigade