How to Build a Fire Fighting Drone?

Published on 20 May 2022. Written by Dineshkumar E

In this project, you will learn how to build a fire fighting drone, which can able to detect and put off the fire both autonomously and manually. Making a final year project on drones will definitely help you to build a nice career.

In recent years drones gained more popularity because of its wide range of applications and the day to day advancements in their features. Fire fighting is one of the difficult tasks where firefighters risk their lives to save the victims. To make the rescuing process easy and safe, drones are implemented to extinguish the fire.

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Project description:

We are going to build the fire fighting drone using the hexacopter (X) configuration. More number of rotors not only help to lift more weight but also for the failsafe purpose. Since we are operating in risky situations if some mishap happens (motor failure) the drone can able to land safely by using the remaining motors (at least 4 working motors).

With the help of image processing algorithms, our drone can able to easily identify the victims and rescue them. The thermal imaging capability of the drone helps the firefighters and first responders to see through smoke during the rescue process.

So before building this project you need to calculate the approximate (AUW) All Up Weight of the drone (which includes all the components). In our case, the calculated drone weight is 30 Kg and the flight time is up to 30 mins. So now we will discuss the components used and their functions.

Our drone can be operated in two ways:

Tethered
Untethered

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In tethered mode, the drone is connected to a ground station, which gives power and water supply to the drone continuously so here the achieved flight time is unlimited. But the range is less here.

Untethered mode can be used to extinguish fires in high rise buildings and to perform rescue missions inside the building.

Components used:

Propellers (28x.9.2)
Brushless motor (T-Motor U11 120 KV)
ESC 80 A
Flight controller - Pixhawk 2.4.8
Obstacle avoidance sensor
GPS module (use RTK for high accuracy)
Radio telemetry
Video transmission system (DJI Lightbridge)
Thermal Imaging camera (FLIR Duo Pro R)
Transmitter and Receiver (Taranis)
Lipo Battery (20,000 mAH)
Fire extinguisher setup
Ground control station (Laptop, Mobile)

Project Implementation:

Assemble the components as per the requirement, then with the help of Mission planner software install the latest firmware to the flight controller board according to the configuration (hexacopter). Before flying the model perform the calibrations such as accelerometer, magnetometer, GPS, ESC, etc.

With the help of Ground control software such as MAVproxy, QGCS, etc. you can able to integrate the computer vision algorithms with the drone to perform the autonomous function.

You can use the Waypoint system to make the drone to perform the extinguishing process more accurate.

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Kit required to develop How to Build a Fire Fighting Drone?:

Technologies you will learn by working on How to Build a Fire Fighting Drone?:

How to Build a Fire Fighting Drone?

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