From The Week magazine:
Each week, we spotlight a cool innovation recommended by some of the industry's top tech writers. This week's pick is a fire-fighting robot.
"Fires have an unfortunate habit of happening in places that aren't necessarily easy to reach," putting firefighters in lethal danger, said Evan Ackerman at IEEE Spectrum. That's led Japanese researchers to design a "snake-like robot" with the body of a fire hose. "Like other snake robots, this one has the potential to be able to wiggle its way into windows or other gaps in a structure, with the benefit of carrying and directing water as it goes." But what sets this design apart is "how it powers itself."
The snake can shoot "high-pressure jets of water downward like rocket engines," lifting the robot up off the ground and allowing it to fly. "While the head nozzle is fighting the source of the fire," the body keeps itself airborne, drenching everything that it's passing over. Researchers are now working on the robot's control algorithms to make the hose "more stable and more controllable."
3 Comments
CrushBugsays...Sure fucked up the grass, though.
bareboards2says...I thought the same thing, but it is partially by design, apparently. To lay down water to drench the area.
But yeah. Bye bye grass.
Sure fucked up the grass, though.
siftbotsays...Moving this video to bareboards2's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.
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