Photo credit: Empa
Researchers at the Imperial College of London and Empa have developed FireDrone, a heat-resistant drone that can analyze the source of danger in burning buildings, forest fires, and more. To achieve this feat, the team utilized a new thermal aerogel insulation material that houses a built-in cooling system to help it withstand temperatures of up to 200°C for up to ten minutes.
Its protective exoskeleton is made of lightweight, thermally super-insulating materials like polyimide aerogel, and glass fibers. The shell was then coated with super-reflecting aluminum to reflect heat. This super-insulation process prevents the materials from shrinking and pore structures from degrading after exposure to high temperatures. Within this exoskeleton lies the standard / infrared cameras, CO2 sensors, video transmitters, flight controllers, batteries, and radio receivers. Let’s just say that the FireDrone would go great with the Honda Acty Crawler 6×6 firetruck in case of emergency.
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The application of drones is often limited by environmental factors like temperature. We demonstrate a way to overcome this and are convinced our findings will help to unleash the future power of drones for extreme environments. Deploying robots in extreme environments provides great benefits to reducing risks to human lives, and who better to look to than animals that have evolved their own ways of adapting to these extremes using inspiration from how animals keep cool in heat,” said Professor Mirko Kovac, Director of the Aerial Robotics Laboratory at Imperial College London.
