Design and construction of an autonomous fire fighting robot

The use of Robots in situations that can be too dangerous for human intervention is growing. One such use is the deployment of Robots for Fire Fighting. This paper is based on the construction of a robot for a contest aimed at simulating this real-world scenario. The paper will discuss the design of a fully autonomous fire fighting robot which is able to navigate through a maze of white fluorescent lines on a blue arena designed specifically for line-tracking based maze navigation. The arena has few obstacles which must be avoided by the robot while navigating, and are meant to encompass obstacle avoidance in robot design. The robot will track white lines to detect and reach fire lit at different locations on the arena in the form of candles, and will blow it off using a fan. The concepts implemented in this robot are differential drive control, obstacle avoidance, environmental sensing, electronic circuit design and maze navigation (line tracking). The sensors used in the robot are Light Dependent Resistors (LDRs) and robot is being controlled by ATMEGA 16 microcontroller. The robot is designed according to the rules laid down by, and to compete in the National Engineering Robotics Competition, (NERC), 2005, Pakistan [1].