fire fighting a.i. and robotics

looking at those mars rovers and other surface exploring self driving platforms, and thinking about the fires in california and the pacific states of the u.s. and those similar horrendous fire conditions in oz six months ago, and personelle shortages and so on. this thought crossed my mind. that a lot of those space explorer platform technologies could be applied to an autonimous fire figthting vehicle. i know this isn't something that could be slapped together in time for this fire season, but it looks to me that many of those technologies could be adopted. the basic mobility platform and processing power might be adopted directly, with chemical supressent tanks replacing much most of the sensing instrument payload, with purpose adopted sensing instruments in their place, cameras still there for teleoperation and human monitoring, and of course nozinls and control systems for them. nuclear batteries are out for any use on earth, as would likely be for conventional battery energy storage systems and internal combustion power and its fuel, although this last is possible, but other energy storage systems for power are available. just a thought. but one for musk or boeing or j.p.l. or the other rocket science high mechanical tech outfits of their ilk. i don't have the background myself, but i know there are people who do who could put together a team to develop this.

 

In India , robots have been deployed for firefighting in dangerous areas, and hopefully, we may be able to develop and deploy them for fighting industrial disasters, forest fires and the like that are usual in drought season.

West Bengal gets firefighting robots for areas difficult to reach by humans during fire

MTNL building fire: How a robot helped firemen douse fire in Mumbai

Around 37 people have died in the recent wildfire in the U.S.

Global warming, increasingly frequency of natural disasters like wildfires, cyclones and hurricanes, and the coronavirus epidemic are the global foes the world is facing at this point of time, and I think rather than merely focussing on military applications of drones and unmanned armoured vehicles, more focus should be put on deploying them in activities that involve risk on human lives and help reduce human casualties.

I have placed here a thread on how robots have been designed and deployed to reduce risk of contagion in Indian hospitals.

Robots join the fight against Covid in India...

 

i was thinking mostly self driving and more autonimous for deployment in remote all terrain areas. hauled in on the back of flatbed trucks and off loaded as near as those can get to fire lines and turned loose with their autonimous a.i. programing, as those planet explorers have to have. i've no doubt more developments then i am aware of are ongoing, and this it makes me happy to see that they are.

 

@themnax, that's genius & brilliant! You need a patent!

My cousin's husband is a fire chief here in the San Bernardino area, and his job would be a little different with that...

But I'm thinking about the lives of firefighters it would protect. Granted robots aren't going to be as effective pulling people from burning high rises and carrying them to safety, but they're sure able to understand terrain on Mars! Should be able to make assertions about heat, wind direction, and vegetation (maybe) too.