Indian Institute of Science (IISc) researchers have proposed to use multiple swarms of drones to tackle natural disasters like forest fires.
As forest fires are becoming increasingly catastrophic across the world, accelerated by climate change, the researchers in a new study propose that swarms of drones could be the solution.
“By the time somebody identifies and reports a fire, it has already started spreading and cannot be put out with one drone. You need to have a swarm of drones. A swarm that can communicate with each other,” said Suresh Sundaram, professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IISc.
Special algorithm
IISc said that the solution was to design a special kind of algorithm that would allow the swarm to communicate with each other as well as make independent decisions. In a hypothetical scenario, when an alarm is raised about a potential fire, the swarms can be sent in, each drone armed with cameras, thermal and infrared sensors, and temperature detectors, to spot the fires.
Once the fire is discovered, the drone closest to it becomes the swarm’s center and attracts others toward it. Interestingly, each drone will also have autonomy to calculate the fire’s size and potential spread and decide how many drones are needed to quench the fire. “These decisions are made by the drones. They figure out which cluster of fire is going to spread faster, and allocate the required number of drones to put out that fire while the others look for other fire clusters,” Prof Sundaram said.
Not random
The swarm-based search algorithm developed by the team is key to controlling the drones’ behaviour. Searching for fire cannot be random as the area to explore would be too large. To address this, the researchers took inspiration from the foraging behaviour of a marine predator, a flagellum called Oxyrrhis marina.
The researchers have tested specific components of the approach, such as the AI-enabled fire detection using thermal cameras, and accurate payload drop mechanism for fire extinguisher deployment.
Full-scale search and mitigation by the swarm is yet to undergo field-testing. Going forward, they plan to combine such drone swarms with unmanned ground vehicles that can carry resources and serve as refuelling stations.
