Research Proposal: Autonomous Fire-fighting Robot using Arduino (360⁰)

This research proposal outlines the design and development of an autonomous fire-fighting robot using Arduino Uno R3. The project aims to address the increasing number of fire accidents by creating a robot capable of extinguishing fires in all directions (360 degrees). The proposal details the robot's objectives, including understanding the role of electronics in life-saving situations, exploring technologies for time and cost savings, and learning about the construction of an autonomous robot. The robot incorporates components like flame sensors, a camera module, servo motors, geared motors, a motor driver, and a water pump controlled by an Arduino microcontroller. The literature review covers the importance of robotics in fire-fighting, the use of various components, and the microcontroller's role. The robot's design allows it to detect and extinguish fires autonomously, making it a valuable tool for rescue operations. The research also discusses the significance of these robots in enhancing human safety and reducing the risk of fire-related incidents. The proposal also discusses the significance of these robots in enhancing human safety and reducing the risk of fire-related incidents.

A Research Proposal on
Fire-fighting ROBOT USING ARDUINO (360⁰)
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[DATE]
[Company name]
[Company address]

Contents
Contents..................................................................................................................................i
Overview of the research:......................................................................................................1
Research aim and objectives:.................................................................................................1
Research Questions:...............................................................................................................1
Significance of the research:..................................................................................................1
Introduction:...........................................................................................................................2
Literature Review:..................................................................................................................2
Positioning of the research:....................................................................................................3
Conclusion and recommendations:........................................................................................4
Research design and methodology:........................................................................................5
References:.............................................................................................................................ii
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Title: Fire Fighting Robot using Arduino (360⁰)
Overview of the research:
In this research proposal the importance of autonomous robots is laid down because of the
increasing number of fire accidents. It is add on to the previous proposals already discussed.
This proposal is different because this highlights a very simplified design that could be
implemented by any enthusiast. The safety of the fire fighters is at danger and is equally
important to the safety of the people whom they want to rescue. This paper lays the
foundation covering every key point necessary in the implementation. It describes the
objectives, the purpose of proposing the research paper. The issues are discussed that are
found commonly in this area. In order to solve them, the concepts are explained to great
extent along with the possible solutions to each one of them. The later part covers the
conclusion and the recommendations. These are necessary to highlight the key points again
and discuss the additional features that could improve the design.
Research aim and objectives:
This research discusses the design and development of an autonomous fire-fighting robot
using Arduino Uno R3. It can extinguish fire in all the direction, thus making it ideal in real
time situations because the fire can happen anywhere. Some of the objectives that are
discussed are given below:
1) To understand the importance of electronics in life saving situations.
2) To explore the concepts and ideologies involved in the development of technologies
that can not only save time and money, but also efforts.
3) To learn the development of an autonomous robot, with all the components required
in building it.
4) To recommends some of the methods and features that would be helpful in its
improvement.
Research Questions:
1) Can we use an autonomous fire-fighting robot to invigilate in all the direction so that
it extinguishes in every direction?
2) Is it possible that an autonomous fire-fighting robot through the tiny entrances of the
burning place, which is unlike in the case of humans?
3) Can we use an autonomous fire-fighting robot for long periods of time so that time to
slow down the fire is reduced?
Significance of the research:
The autonomous fire-fighting robots have many significances that are a boon to the human
safety. They are robust, powerful, cheap, ease of use and the most important is their
portability. It makes use of very common and popular components yet there is no
compromise on the quality. Arduino Uno R3 is a very powerful development board that can
serve its purpose of controlling each component. The design is very simple and so is the
algorithm. Human fire-fighters have many limitations. Although they save many lives, yet
they risk their own. From the past few years the number of fire accidents have increased. The
risk to life and property has increased. In order to decrease these incidents it is mandatory to
understand its significance. These robots can serve a very important purpose. They not only
can decrease the accidents, but also make the rescue operation fast. With the advancement of
technology everything around us is becoming autonomous. This area should not be kept aside
in this regard (Soffar, 2016).
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Introduction:
Robots are playing an important role in reducing the human efforts. They can operate
automatically without any interference of humans. They do not get tired which makes them
work for a long period of time which is not the case with humans. Robots can perform under
some situations where it is extremely dangerous for humans to operate. This could range
from the rovers crawling in the extreme conditions of Mars surface to a robot saving lives by
extinguishing fire efficiently. In this research proposal, an autonomous robot is designed and
discussed that can track the fire and extinguish in no time. There are certain situations where
the fire can to be fled away but at the same time it is very dangerous for any human to do
that. The gases released are not only hot but also dangerous to human health. The
autonomous robot discussed is compact. It can track the fire using camera and flame sensor in
all the direction. Thus it can cover an angle of 360 around it. A microcontroller acts as a⁰
brain to the complete system. It is mounted on an easy to use, plug and play type
development board- Arduino Uno R3. It can be easily programmed using C language in an
open source software- Arduino IDE, which is very simple to learn and use.
Literature Review:
With the increasing cases of fire and explosions due to that, human lives are at stake. The
human fire extinguishers are good undoubtedly, but they consume a lot of time as well as
efforts. Moreover, their safety is also at stake because the poisonous gases released are very
harmful, the high temperatures leads to skin burns which results in their death in many cases.
There is nothing greater than human life and therefore any step in this regard is very valuable.
One such step is this proposal that highlights some points in this regard. An autonomous fire-
extinguishing robot that work independently and accurately, is designed. It consists of cheap
components, yet high quality and easy to use. The main components are Arduino Uno R3,
flame sensor, camera module, servo motor, geared motor, motor driver, power source, body,
wheels, buzzer, water pump, water tank, a lithium-ion battery and connecting wires (Raj,
2017), (Gulhane, 2017).
A microcontroller is a brain of an embedded system. It controls the various components,
instructs them through the commands lines and makes them do their job. In this project one
of the most popular microcontroller, Atmel’s Atmega328p, is used. It is a low power chip
(operating voltage varies from 1.8 to 5.5 volts) with high efficiency, capable of performing
many complex tasks easily (Peter, 2017). It is an 8-bit RISC based controller. It includes an
EEPROM of the size 1KB, a flash memory of the size 32KB, SRAM of 2KB, I/O lines which
are 23 in number, 32 registers which can be used for general purpose, 3 timers/counters that
could be used in various modes, interrupts (both internal and external), USART through
which it could be programmed, 2-wire interface, SPI, Analog to Digital converter of the
resolution 10 bits and of 6 channel, watchdog timer and an internal clock of 1MHz. This
microcontroller is employed indirectly with the help of the most popular development boards
in the market, Arduino Uno R3 (Intorobotics, 2013), (Cbenson, 2018). This is a powerful
board that combines the power of Atmega328p and the ease of its usage. Covering a large
area of vision is very important in fire-fighting because fire could be anywhere from slightest
to severe. In order to cover every direction, a servo motor (TowerPro SG90) is used (Singh,
et al., 2018), (Youngblood, 2015). On this servo motor, a flame sensor (KY-026) (Tkkrlab,
2016) and a VGA camera (VC0706) is mounted. These modules are controlled through the
microcontroller. A geared motor helps to make the robot move freely and fast. Its operating
voltage is between 3V to 6V. It helps the robot to lift heavy weights of all the modules
mounted on the body. Its operating voltage is between 3V to 6V. In order to control them a
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motor driver IC (L293D) is used. It makes use of a combination of bits that controls the
motor. All these components are
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stacked on top of the body or the chassis as we call it, it is made up of fireproof high quality
carbon fibre that makes it extremely light and strong (Vidyakar, 2018). A water tank is filled
with water that acts as a fire extinguishing material. A water pump helps to throw the water
out of the tank and stop the fire by spraying over it. It describes all the main components as
discussed above (Mlandergan, 2017). The servo motor is continuously rotating and hence the
flame sensor and camera. The camera captures any trace of light source (Electronics Hub,
2016). If it finds a high intensity light source, which is the fire in this case. This signal is
sensed by the microcontroller and it instructs the flame sensor to sense the fire flames. If the
flames are found, it also gives signal to the microcontroller to instruct the motor to move in
that direction. This movement is controlled by the motor driver IC (Kurmangaliyeva, 2014).
The possible movements could be forward, backward, left and right. The robot moves
accordingly and reaches the spot where the fire needs to be controlled. As soon as it reaches,
the microcontroller instructs the water pump to release some water. The water is then pumped
out and stops the fire. The whole setup is powered by a lithium-ion battery of 20000mAh.
This capacity is ideal to make the robot work for more number of hours easily. The high
capacity along with the less power consuming components make the robot to fight the fire for
a longer period of time along, which is not the case with the humans as they have their own
limitations (Ben, 2017).
Positioning of the research:
The camera module and the flame sensor are mounted on the servo motor (Brande, 2016),
(Das, 2018). This servo motor can be rotated in all the direction continuously to trace any
sign of fire. The camera module used in the robot is of VGA type having a pixel array of
694H x 489V. It makes use of some complicated functions such as the mirroring of the row
and column and windowing. The microcontroller controls it using the two wire
communication. It consumes very little power and therefore ideal because a fire-fighting
robot can carry a limited source of power, therefore its conservation in every manner is a
must. The main function of camera is to capture the light from its environment. The light can
be either a normal source or it could also be fire. So, the detection of a high light source is
performed by the camera module, while the confirmation of it is performed by the flame
sensor. As soon as the camera module senses the light, it sends the signal to the
microcontroller. The microcontroller senses and accordingly instructs the flame sensor to
identify it. If the voltage pin of the flame sensor is used, it gives a high voltage to the
microcontroller pin, else a low voltage. This way it is confirmed that both the modules are
stating the presence of fire. The microcontroller now instructs the motor IC to make the
geared motors move in the direction of the fire as soon as possible. The robot then moves and
extinguishes the fire by the water pump, which is instructed by the microcontroller to do so.
This way the robot covers every direction, invigilates it and accordingly performs its actions
by its own with no human intervention. This addresses my research question number 1.
The autonomous fire-fighting robot is compact in size due to the fact that it makes use of very
less and small components. Arduino is a complete development board that makes use of the
powerful microcontroller Atmega328p. It is compact and contains everything that would help
Atmega328p to function at its best. One such additional component is the oscillator of the
frequency 16MHz. This improves the performance to a great extent. The camera module is of
the dimension 32mm x 32mm. The flame sensor is of the dimension 3cm x 1.5cm x 0.5cm.
The body can be made compact by the expert designers. The Wheels can also be customised
according to the weight obtained of the complete structure. The only ‘big’ thing as compared
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to the other components is the water tank that stores water. The more the size of the tank
chosen,
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the more water it can store that would be helpful at the time of fire extinguishing. Although
the capacity of the battery pack is high, yet it is compact (Rockett, 2018). There are various
high quality battery packs that are available in the market that are very compact. So, overall
the robot is compact and ideal to enter those passages through which humans cannot enter.
Moreover, it can access those locations in no time even if the location’s temperature is high.
With proper shielding, the robot can guard its components from the heat. The strength of the
motors will determine its speed and torque. An autonomous robot is desirable because it does
not need any human interference. If there is any obstruction across its path it can dodge that
accordingly. This addresses my research question number 2.
The robot makes use of a powerful lithium-ion battery of the capacity 20000mAh. Lithium-
ion battery are better than lithium-polymer ones. Lithium-ion batteries are having high
density and therefore higher capacity. It has less self-discharge which makes it less power
consuming (Sebatini, 2011). Thus, saving its own power. The prolonged life is supported by
the less maintenance. It provides the high current output that is needed to operate the
microcontroller and other components efficiently (Nitta, et al., 2015), (RAVPower, 2017). It
is rechargeable and can last longer when recharged once (Woodford, 2018). They are less
harmful as compared to others which makes it easy to use. Proper circuitry for recharging is
required which can be easily sorted out by making use of high quality batteries (Sabatini,
2011), (Scotties Tech, 2015), (Techspirited, 2018). Due to these factors a lithium-ion battery
serves the best purpose to power the robot. This addresses my research question number 3.
Conclusion and recommendations:
This research proposal stresses upon the need of an autonomous fire-fighting robot using
Arduino that can stop fire in all the direction. Each component is explained clearly, their
importance and associated function is also mentioned. This robot is an autonomous which is
one of the greatest advantages of using it because if it involved humans, there would have
been errors. Moreover, it was designed keeping in mind the minimisation of human
assistance. The fire fighters now days are at an equal risk as compared to the people stuck in
the burning buildings because they risk their lives to save others. The robot is capable of
putting off fire accurately because it makes use of two sensors to track fire. The first one
being the camera while the second being the flame sensor. The camera captures the light and
informs the microcontroller to validate it. The flame sensor confirms whether it is a fire or
not. Upon verification the motor driver IC is instructed to reach the source after which the
water is poured by the water pump. The whole mechanism is easy to understand and
implement. The robot is compact and fast. It can withstand high temperatures and jerks due to
great suspension and fire-proofing. The robot is subjected to further improvements. High
quality image sensing devices can be added to improve its tracking. Thermal cameras would
improve its vision to a very large extent. The robot can be converted into an IOT model so
that the real time data can be analysed. Rescue robots should be encouraged because this
would not only open the gates for fire-fighting ones, but also in other hazards, such the
collapsing of the building. Fire rescue industry holds a very important place today because
the number of fire related tragedies are increasing day by day. Moreover, the risks involved
as well as the loss to the property is posing a serious threat to the security of the nation. It is a
high value and high profit market attracting many investors all around the world. The
importance of this industry is very well understood by the market specialists and investors.
The robot described above solves the challenges of accuracy and the extent to which the fire
could be stopped by a single robot. The servo motor helps the sensor modules to continuously
investigate the fire. If a team of robots with improved functionalities are employed in the
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rescue operations, the number of loss of lives would reduce drastically. Other common issue
is the small passages through which fire fighters go in order
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to enter the burning place. Due to fire, a lot of materials hinders the passage, the removal of
which wastes a lot of time which could otherwise be used in search operations. This is solved
by the compact size of the robot described in this proposal. The third and last issue as
described in this paper is the period of operation. The robot can perform till hours due to the
fact that it uses a powerful and high capacity power bank which is not only among the best
batteries but also reliable. Li-ion batteries solves the problem of ‘limited power’ because it is
delivering power for a much longer period as compared to the other battery types. Moreover,
the components used in building the robot consumes very less power. This saves the power as
a whole along with the high capacity battery. Summarising we can conclude that this area is
open to further improvements to an already capable ‘fire-fighting bot’.
Research design and methodology:
This research paper involves various methods to be implemented so that the objectives
mentioned above are achieved. The issues as discussed above needs analysis and then
undertaking of the techniques in order to collect the resources to understand it better. The
Arduino development board is the key player in this proposal and therefore it is important to
grasp the programming skills along with the debugging because in the real life scenarios
many run time issues are also generated. The official website of Arduino makes it easier to
understand the syntax and example codes. This paper frames every part in order to present a
complete design as a whole. The data obtained after performing some initial tests in the
prototypes helps to make the final product more advanced and better. Feedback is very
important in the development of any product therefore it could be used to improve the
described design. This proposal is open to changes.
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