Summary/Reader Response Draft #1

 In the article "Firefighting Robots Go Autonomous"(2021), Little highlighted to the public the advantages and disadvantages of using firefighting robots to extinguish fires. The author claimed that firefighting robots can help to reduce risk to firefighters as they can perform tasks too dangerous for humans. The author said research shows that an average of 80 firefighters die when over 3,000 Americans die in fires each year. The author mentioned that these firefighting robots are able to enter burning buildings too hot for human survival. Jane stated that these robots are in the progress of making them autonomous. According to the author, a firefighting robot named Robotics Systems 3(RS3) has shown its capabilities and is now being used by the Los Angeles City Fire Department. It is merely a tool to provide humans with effective strategies without risking their lives. Another firefighting robot named R2-D2 was a group project designed by a group of university students. This robot proved that an autonomous robot can be built with a budget of around $40,000-$50,000 and can go as little as $10,000. However, this robot is not ready for real-world fire as there are problems such as manoeuvering in unexpected terrains. Although these firefighting robots will never be able to replace a firefighter, they should be able to provide assistance to firefighters in terms of safety and efficiency.

Pertaining to safety, firefighters' biggest health risk is heart disease. 45% of the cause of firefighters’ deaths is due to coronary heart disease (Kales et al., 2003). Smoke inhalation and chemical exposure are two key factors that lead to these deaths (Stefanos N. Kales et al., 2007). To reduce firefighters’ risk, firefighting robots are introduced so they can be the first to go in when a fire occurs. For instance, when a fire occurs in a building, a firefighting robot enters the building and uses its flame sensor to detect fires so the firefighters are able to extinguish the fires (A. Hassanein et al., 2015). A firefighting robot uses its’ human sensor to detect humans in a burning building so firefighters can carry them to safety (Pransky, J., 2021). By providing effective strategies without risking lives, firefighting robots are proven to contribute to the firefighters’ safety (Roldán-Gómez et al., 2021).

Secondly, firefighting robots are known for their efficiency when it comes to dealing with fires. They are able to perform like a firefighter in a real-world context in a long run. Firefighting robots are used in situations that are too dangerous for any human to involve themselves in (A. Hassanein et al., 2015). They can provide immediate eyes to firefighters as well as suppress fires from their core (Pransky, J., 2021). They are also able to navigate through different floors as houses or buildings on fire will usually be on more than one level and use their flame sensor to detect fires (A. Hassanein et al., 2015). Once the fire is detected, the robot will direct itself to face the fire (J. -H. Kim, B. Keller & B. Y. Lattimer, 2013) and extinguish the fire using a fire extinguisher (S. Park et al., 2015). For now, firefighting robots are just tools to provide firefighters with effective strategies without risking their lives (Little, 2021). With these advancements that firefighting robots can perform, it is no doubt that these robots are able to act as a support for firefighters (Bogue, R., 2021).

However, like any other robot, firefighting robots also do have limitations. The battery is one of the many limitations of a firefighting robot. Firefighting robots require a large amount of power supply just for one rescue mission (J. Kim, J. E. Dietz & E. T. Matson, 2016). Moreover, due to the robot's size restriction, any batteries bigger than AA size batteries would not fit inside the robot (Dubel, W. et al., 2003). Research shows that a firefighting robot has "little working time" (Krasnov, E., & Bagaev, D., 2012) as it is only able to operate for 2 hours before needing to charge the batteries (Dubel, W. et al., 2003). This proves that firefighting robots are not a practical solution to put out forest fires as forest fires require a long period of time to put out. However, efforts are undergoing to produce longer-lasting firefighting robots so that they can fight alongside firefighters for a longer period of time.

References

Little, J.B. (October 2021) Firefighting Robots Go Autonomous. Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/firefighting-robots-go-autonomous/

Kales, S.N., Soteriades, E.S., Christoudias, S.G. (2003). Firefighters and on-duty deaths from coronary heart disease: a case control study. Environ Health 2, 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-2-14

Stefanos N. Kales, M.D., M.P.H., Elpidoforos S. Soteriades, M.D., Sc.D.,Costas A. Christophi, Ph.D., & David C. Christiani, M.D., M.P.H. (2007). Emergency Duties and Deaths from Heart Disease among Firefighters in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa060357

A. Hassanein, M. Elhawary, N. Jaber & M. El-Abd (2015). An autonomous firefighting robot. International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR), pp. 530-535. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAR.2015.7251507

Pransky, J. (2021). Geoff Howe, senior vice president, Howe and Howe, Inc., a subsidiary of Textron Systems; co-pioneer of robotic firefighting technologies, including Thermite™ firefighting robots. Industrial Robot, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 169-173. https://doi.org/10.1108/IR-12-2020-0266

Juan Jesús Roldán-Gómez, Eduardo González-Gironda & Antonio Barrientos (2021). A Survey on Robotic Technologies for Forest Firefighting: Applying Drone Swarms to Improve Firefighters’ Efficiency and Safety. Appl. Sci., 11(1), 363. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11010363

S. Park, Y. Kim, E. T. Matson, Hyeonae Jang, Changwha Lee & Wooram Park (2015). An intuitive interaction system for fire safety using a speech recognition technology. 6th International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Applications (ICARA), pp. 388-392. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARA.2015.7081179

J. -H. Kim, B. Keller & B. Y. Lattimer (2013). Sensor fusion based seek-and-find fire algorithm for intelligent firefighting robot. International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, pp. 1482-1486. https://doi.org/10.1109/AIM.2013.6584304

Bogue, R. (2021). The role of robots in firefighting. Industrial Robot, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 174-178. https://doi.org/10.1108/IR-10-2020-0222

J. Kim, J. E. Dietz & E. T. Matson (2016). Modeling of a multi-robot energy saving system to increase operating time of a firefighting robot. Symposium on Technologies for Homeland Security (HST), pp. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1109/THS.2016.7568971

Dubel, W., Gongora, H., Bechtold, K., & Diaz, D. (2003). An autonomous firefighting robot. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA.

Krasnov, E., & Bagaev, D. (2012). Conceptual analysis of fire fighting robots' control systems. In 2012 IV International Conference" Problems of Cybernetics and Informatics"(PCI), (pp. 1-3). IEEE.