Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Holy Robopocalyptic Firefighters! Dept of Interior Testing KMAX Unmanned Helicopters for Fighting Wild Fires

The US Department of the Interior could begin using unmanned air vehicles to battle forest fire within a year based on a recent demonstration in which Kaman Aerospace and Lockheed Martin doused controlled burns with an optionally piloted K-MAX helicopter.

During a 5 November demonstration, an optionally manned version of the K-MAX completed eight firefighting scenarios at Griffiss International Airport in upstate New York designated by the Federal Aviation Administration as an unmanned air vehicle test site.

During a 4h window, the helicopter performed autonomous fire suppression operations including collecting and dropping 2,270kg (500gal) of water on controlled burns without a pilot in the cockpit, says Dan Spoor, Lockheed’s vice-president of aviation and unmanned systems.

“We also demonstrated the ability to build fire lines, which means sequentially dropping water in front of the fire to create a firebreak,” Spoor says.

The aircraft was able to drop 659l or 10,900kg (24,000lb) in an hour, the equivalent to a single Boeing 747 load, says Greg Steiner, president of Kaman Aerospace.

Also on hand for the test was a Lockheed Indago quadcopter, which fed information to the K-MAX ground control operator. The small UAV would be launched by a firefighter on the fire line to provide situational awareness and to designate a target for the K-MAX to douse.

Manned versions of the K-MAX already are used for firefighting missions, as well as construction, logging and humanitarian disaster relief.

“Optionally piloted versions build on this baseline,” Steiner says. “They can be flown as a manned version during the day and then unmanned during the night to support 24h firefighting.”

No comments: