2017 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT T ECHNIQUES IN CONTROL , OPTIMIZATION AND SIGNAL P ROCESSING

Development and Implementation of Arduino

Microcontroller Based Dual Mode Fire
Extinguishing Robot
Joyal Raju Johaan Varkey Paul
UG Scholar, EEE Department UG Scholar, EEE Department
Amal Jyothi College of Engineering Amal Jyothi College of Engineering
Kanjirapally, Kerala Kanjirapally, Kerala
joyalraju3395@gmail.com johaanpaul96@gmail.com

Sheik Mohammed S Georgy Abel John

Assistant Professor, EEE Department UG Scholar, EEE Department
Amal Jyothi College of Engineering Amal Jyothi College of Engineering
Kanjirapally, Kerala Kanjirapally, Kerala
ssheikmd@yahoo.co.in georgyabeljohn@gmail.com

Dinanath S. Nair
UG Scholar, EEE Department
Amal Jyothi College of Engineering
Kanjirapally, Kerala
dinanathsnair@ee.ajce.in

Abstract—This paper presents the development and form of accident and can cause a huge number of
implementation of dual mode firefighting robot. The causalities because of the danger and risk involved in
proposed fire extinguishing robot works in either rescuing victims out of the fire. Everything a person owns
automatic or manual mode. The operation of robot is can be lost in the fire, even life itself [1]. Fire accidents in
monitored and controlled by Arduino UNO industries involves working with combustible materials,
microcontroller. Complete robot model is simulated for example petroleum or other chemicals. When
using Proteus. The hardware of proposed fire firefighting units engage in such situations there is a high
extinguishing robot is implemented and tested. A possibility to loss the life of fire personnel’s. In everyday
surveillance camera is mounted on the robot to life, it is not feasible to always rely on human patrol for
monitor the movement of robot under manual mode. detecting and extinguishing fire at a fire accident scene
Real time surveillance can also be obtained from the [2]. If an automated system is made to patrol the perimeter
camera in automatic mode. In automated mode, robot for fire accidents, then we can have an early warning
will detect the fire and move to the fire location and system. This will be very effective in a fire accident in
water will be pumped to extinguish the fire. In manual industries and residential areas where the fire possibilities
mode, user is able to control the whole movement and are high [3]. In order to achieve this, we must come up
the pumping action of robot. Location of fire can be with an idea which can detect a flame, locate it and
detected with the help of camera of robot. After the extinguish the fire immediately before it poses a threat to
water is pumped, fire is extinguished to ground level. anything around it. For risky situations, it would be
idealistic to send a firefighting robot that could quickly
Keywords— Robot; Arduino; Proteus; Fire and efficiently find the fire and suppress it. Effective
Extinguisher monitoring, high speed recognition, and extinguishing of
fire are problems to be dealt with immediately [4]. To
I.INTRODUCTION reduce the risk of losing life in such situations,
firefighting robots can be used [5]. The automatic robot is
Fire accidents is defined as an undesirable event which designed to avoid further spreading of the fire that could
emits heat, smoke or flame. It has the potential to cause lead to possible human causalities or damage to property.
damage, may require intervention either mechanical or Firefighting robot will help the fire fighters to do their job
human or has a cost implication. A fire accident in many effectively [6].
cases maybe a consequence of some human agency
without any intention, or which happens by some natural There have been many attempts made to employ robots in
causes without human agency. Fire accident is a major the capacity of fire extinguisher. Jong-Hwan Kim

978-1-5090-4778-9/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

 2017 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT T ECHNIQUES IN CONTROL , OPTIMIZATION AND SIGNAL P ROCESSING

developed a Sensor Fusion Based Firefighting Robot that of proposed firefighting robot is shown in figure 2.
introduces an algorithm developed for an intelligent
firefighting mobile robot to find a fire efficiently by The robot works in two modes (A) Automated mode and
fusing long wave infrared camera, ultraviolet radiation (B) Manual mode
sensor, and LIDAR. The robot immediately calculates its
path towards the fire, moves towards it avoiding Automated Mode
obstacles, and ultimately finds the fire. When the fire is In automated mode, the robot is completely automated to
out, the robot returns to its original starting place. [7]. search for the presence of possible flames and obstacles in
Young-Duk Kim developed a portable fire evacuation the vicinity. The robot moves around and search for the
guide robot system that can be thrown into a fire site to signs of flame. In the case of the presence of an obstacle
gather environmental information, search displaced in the path of the robot, it will deviate to right until the
people, and evacuate them from the fire site [8]. Richard obstacle is clear of its path. This is done using an
W. White, developed A Fire Fighting System includes a ultrasonic sensor attached to the robot. The robot will
Vehicle with a plurality of mounted motors, and shield search for flames using the three flame sensors placed in
system, an emergency fire retardant discharge system, and front of the robot. When a fire is detected in the long-
a modular instrumentation assembly [2]. range flame sensor (sensors with range of 400mm) [9] that
is placed on either ends of the robot, the robot will turn in
Our attempt is to develop and implement a fire the direction of the flame and moves forward until the
extinguishing robot with locally available materials and it value of short range flame sensor (center sensor with
works on an Arduino based fire detection and range of 200mm) is lower than the cutoff value. When the
extinguishing methodology. This paper presents the value of the center flame sensor is below cutoff value,
design, simulation, construction and development of fire then the robot will stop and initiate the pumping action.
detecting mechanism that will detect and extinguish the Once the pumping action is initiated, the motor for the
fire immediately with a real-time surveillance camera to pump will be enabled and sprays the water. This is done
observe the fire accident scene. The robot normally works until the flame is bought down to ground level. The robot
in automated mode and can be switched to manual mode will keep moving around in search of a possible fire.
using a remote control to manually extinguish the fire. The
robot is fabricated in such a manner that it can protect
itself by always maintaining a safe distance between the
fire and the robot.

II.DUAL MODE FIREFIGHTING ROBOT

The block diagram of dual mode firefighting robot is
shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Block Diagram of Robot

The proposed firefighting robot has three flame detectors

in which two of them are long range sensors and the other
one is short range sensor. The robot also has an obstacle
detector Bluetooth module and surveillance camera. The
Arduino UNO micro controller which is the processing
and control unit of robot receives the inputs from the
sensors and operate the robot accordingly. The flowchart
Figure 2: Flowchart of Robot
 2017 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT T ECHNIQUES IN CONTROL , OPTIMIZATION AND SIGNAL P ROCESSING

Manual Mode and a development environment that implements the

To operate the robot in manual mode, a Bluetooth module processing or wiring language. This is a microcontroller
is used. System is connected to smart phones by using a board based on ATMega 328 [10]. It has 14 digital
Bluetooth module. The Bluetooth device can be configured input/output pins (of which 6 can be used for PWM
to receive corresponding serial data for controlling the outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16Mhz ceramic resonator, a
robot which is transmitted from the smartphone. An USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a
override button and switch button is configured to switch reset button. The flame sensor used in the robot is LM393.
between the two modes of operation of the robot. The The module can detect flames or wavelength in range of
movement and pumping action of the robot can be 760nm to 1100nm range of light source [4]. The sensor
controlled with the help of the configured smartphone. A and flame should keep a certain distance to avoid high
camera is placed in the robot to obtain the actual temperature damage to the sensor. The shortest test
surveillance of the fire scene. This can be used to monitor distance is 80cm and the detection angle is 60 degrees, so
the movement and working of the robot in automatic mode the flame spectrum is especially sensitive. The flame
and it can be used for controlling the robot and observing sensor is connected to the analog input pins in the
the fire scene in manual mode. Arduino. The obstacle sensor used in the robot is HC-
SR04 ultrasonic sensor. Uses sonar to measure distance to
III.SIMULATION AND HARDWARE REALIZATION an object it offers excellent range accuracy and stable
OF FIRE EXTINGUISHING ROBOT readings in an easy-to-use package. The module can work
on 5V dc and a static current less than 2milli-ampere. It
The control circuit of the proposed fire extinguishing will detect a range from 2 to 450 cm with a precision up to
robot is modeled and simulated using Proteus 8.8. The 0.3 cm. The obstacle sensor will detect the immediate
simulation diagram of the robot is shown in figure 3. obstacles in the path and deviate the robot from the
Arduino UNO microcontroller is used to control the obstacle an ultrasonic sensor transmits ultrasonic waves
process of the robot. Arduino UNO is an open source into the air and detects reflected waves from an object.
physical computing platform based on simple I/O boards

Figure 3: Simulation diagram

Bluetooth module is embedded in this is system to operate have 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, and do not have parity. The
the robot from remote location in wireless mode. Version Bluetooth module has a range of 30m and working
2.0 Bluetooth protocol is used to communicate between frequency of 2.4GHz to 2.524GHz. mobile phones with
robot and the remote. Bluetooth transceiver module is installed app can be used as remote control. By paring
used as UART RS232 serial convertor module [3]. The with module via Bluetooth [11]. This eliminates the need
module will operate between an input voltage of 3.3V to for development of a separate remote control module. The
6V. The Tx and Rx lines operate at 3.3V. It supports serial robot movement is controlled by two motors. When the
speed from 1200 to 1382400 bps (default is 9600 bps) and flame sensor detects the fire location, the motors will be
 2017 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT T ECHNIQUES IN CONTROL , OPTIMIZATION AND SIGNAL P ROCESSING

activated and moves the robot in the direction of fire. IV.CONCLUSION

Motor Driver IC’s act as an interface between the
microcontroller and the motors of the robot. Motor Driver A dual mode firefighting robot which works in both
IC L293D is a dual H bridge driver [12]. They act as a automated and manual mode is presented in this paper.
current amplifier since they take low current control Arduino microcontroller is used as the processing and
signal and provide high current signal. High current signal control unit of the robot. The model of robot is simulated
is used to drive the motor. This IC contains two in-built H and analyzed using Proteus. The hardware of dual mode
bridge driver circuits. In its common mode of operation, it robot is implemented and tested.
can drive two DC motor simultaneously both in forward
and reverse direction. The motor operations of two motors REFERENCES
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Figure 5: Development photo of front view