The U.S. Navy Made a Hoodie-Wearing Robot That Terminates Fires
Finally, there’s a real-life robot that will help you say Hasta la vista to flaming disasters.
No, I’m not referring to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest ill-advised Terminator sequel. I’m talking about the Navy’s new robot, a walking, hose-wielding humanoid known as SAFFiR.
Short for “Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot,” SAFFir has been in development at the Office of Naval Research (in partnership with several universities) for about five-years. As demonstrated by the newly released video above, it can walk on uneven floor, direct itself toward whatever’s on fire, and spray a hose on whatever’s burning until it stops.
SAFFiR doing its thing. (Via YouTube).
Why can’t normal human beings do that, you ask? They, apparently, are not very good at putting out fires, according to the director of the navy’s fire test ship, John Farley.
"It’s hard to keep the sailors up to the latest as far as training is concerned," he said in the video. “Sometimes they can create an environment and make it worst. the robot could be trained and constantly updated to make sure conditions are not as bad as humans could make it.”
SAFFiR does this with the help of lots of hardware. Visible cameras are attached to its body so those watching its progress can see what’s happening. It also has stereoscopic thermal imaging cameras that the robot uses to detect and locate the position of a fire. Its system pinpoints fields of view using something called LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), which resembles an early 8-bit first-person shooter video game.
SAFFiR’s LiDAR is ON POINT. (Via YouTube).
And because this hunk of metal runs on batteries, and all of its motors are electrical, researchers dress SAFFiR in a fly hooded jumpsuit, too.
But the robot isn’t completely independent just yet. It relies on our friends, the drones, to first fly through a ship’s narrow corridors and locate the origin of a fire. It’s then sent to through the flames with the help of a team of humans, who monitor its progress on computer screens from a fire-less room.
SAFFiR’s drone helper seeks out the fire. (Via YouTube).
ONR’s program manager, Dr. Thomas McKenna, admits that SAFFiR is a little slower than they’d like, and until the bot speeds up, it won’t be ready to fight actual fires. Still, McKenna says its still a tremendous step toward the Navy’s ultimate, semi-creepy goal.
“We’re working toward human-robot teams,” he said in the video. “What we call the hybrid force. Humans and robots working together.”
[Via Defense One]
