Bio-Inspired Hexapedal Firefighting Robot

This work presents the design and development of an autonomous legged fire-fighting robot. The hexapod robot is capable of legged locomotion without external control, and is tasked with searching arbitrary maze structures for flames via image processing. Once detected, flames are extinguished through a jet of high pressure carbon dioxide (CO
2
) gas. The extinguishing mechanism was created via a pressurized volume of gas with release controlled via a solid state relay. Walking gaits were designed through kinematic analysis to mimic motion of arthropods. This bio-inspired multi-legged design affords stability without the need for a dedicated balance controller. Gait execution and motor commands were generated for the mechanisms servo joints via an Arduino microcontroller for a variety of pre-programmed motions, including forward, backward, and right/left turns. Results are promising, with stable locomotion and consistent flame localization and extinguishing.