Proposal of Multi-Agent Robotic Fire Extinguishing Model for Industrial Premises

Protecting equipment and objects from fire in warehouses and industry premises is essential due to a high number of people present, valuable equipment or inventory and possibly dangerous goods. It is mostly often conducted by using smoke and fire sensors along with extinguishing systems. Still, in facilities with valuable inventory and equipment, it is also necessary to protect equipment from damage caused by water. This paper proposes a multi-agent robotic fire extinguishing model consisted of autonomous robots divided into two groups: Patrol Robots and Fire Extinguishing (FE) robots, called PR-FER model. The main methodology of the PR-FER model is using small patrol autonomous robots as a surveillance robots that will first map the surveillance area, determine the patrol paths, and conduct surveillance according to the predefined schedule. They are equipped with the devices for detecting fire and high temperatures such as RGB, IR and Thermal Imaging cameras and various sensors. Furthermore, they will have high capacity batteries which will enable them a long autonomy. In case of a detection of too high temperatures and fire, patrol robots would map the dangerous location and call FE robots to extinguish it. The FE robots are more robust and heavier robots equipped with fire extinguishers. During the fire extinguishing procedure the patrol robots would notify the fire department and enable them a video streaming in order to get an early awareness of the situation on the field.