Autonomous Wildfire Drone Can Fly through Smoke to Help Save Firefighters’ Lives

Drones were first introduced for use in firefighting about 13 years ago, at the 2011 Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC) International.

Credit: Skydio

At the time, using a drone to fight fires was a futuristic idea. Could drones really help fight fires, many wondered?

These days we know they can. In fact, drones are so important to firefighting operations that they’ve become commonplace.

Fire departments all over the country use drones regularly in their work, doing things like:

• Visualizing a blaze in real time to fight it better
• Locating victims in need of rescue using thermal imaging
• Conducting post-fire investigations with 3D maps
• Identifying hot spots using aerial thermography to determine whether a fire is still burning

Source: FAA

And FAA data shows drone use among public safety agencies (PSAs) to be growing rapidly, with estimates that the number of drones used by PSAs will be over 30,000 by 2025, representing a growth of 300% from the 10,000 in use in 2020.

Despite all the benefits drones provide firefighting operations, they still have a lingering limitation: They have to fly a safe distance above the fire.

But isn’t that true for all drones?

Not any more.

A Drone that Can Fly through Smoke

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have been working on a new type of firefighting drone that can fly close to the ground, allowing it to fly through the smoke and just above the treeline during a wildfire, or even below the canopy in some instances.

This kind of drone opens up brand new use cases for drones in firefighting:

• Mapping the fire on the ground, in and below the smoke
• Visualizing the fire on the ground to plan for fighting it and to identify escape routes
• Locating danger zones in the fire to support operations on the ground in real time

. . . drones used by those fighting wildfires are high-altitude aircraft that fly far above the trees. They can’t fly low because they can’t see through smoke. We want to fly just above the trees or even below the canopy.”

– Andrew Jong, PhD Student at Carnegie Mellon University

The Life-Saving Importance of Real-Time Information in Fighting Wildfires

Although drones have already proven to be incredibly useful for firefighting, they still can’t always provide real-time data. And the delay in getting information to firefighters can lead to lost lives.

That’s why the primary goal of the new CMU drone is to build a 3D model of an area impacted by wildfire as quickly as possible.

According to retired firefighter Josh Wilkins, a collaborator on the CMU project, firefighters are often given information that is 12 hours old.

“I helped bury too many folks who died for lack of actionable information,” says Wilkins, talking about the potential life-saving impact the new drone could have. In the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona, 19 firefighters died after a sudden change in the weather cut off their escape route, an awful event that underscores just how important real-time information is.

This new drone seems like it could help firefighters get this kind of crucial information. And it’s being developed at a critical time, when fires are increasing in number and intensity every single year across the globe.

How Does the Wildfire Drone Work?

To be effective, CMU researchers knew they needed a drone that could fly at high speed under the canopy without colliding with obstacles.

To avoid crashing, the wildfire drone does pathfinding while in flight, finding the best trajectories that will let the drone fly unimpeded while also letting it get the most data possible for 3D mapping.

Pathfinding is done by using data from a combination of radar, long-wave infrared, and visible light sensors and processing it with AI techniques, allowing the drone to fly autonomously around obstacles like branches or power lines that may be concealed by smoke.

Researchers are also using the same approach the drone uses to “see” through smoke and make its way around objects to create “de-smoked” 3D models, allowing you to clearly visualize an area or object in a 3D model.

A desmoked 3D model | Credit: CMU

These 3D models can help firefighters quickly triage the structures in the path of a wildfire, allowing them to concentrate on the buildings with the best chance of being saved.

The key value is that the drone lets them make these decisions remotely, without having to endanger themselves to do an in-person assessment. The safety benefit here is akin to the benefit drones provide inspectors working in dangerous areas, like confined spaces, by eliminating the need for them to endanger themselves in order to collect inspection data.

The CMU drone was created based on research that went into the multi-year DARPA Subterranean Challenge, which involved multiple challenges for autonomous robotics operating in underground environments. It is also being developed with support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.