As urban landscapes and industrial facilities grow increasingly intricate and hazardous, the risks faced by firefighting personnel have escalated to a point where human intervention alone is no longer sufficient — driving a pressing need for robotic systems capable of stepping in and operating independently in the most dangerous of conditions. This paper details the design and hands-on evaluation of a firefighting robot built around an Arduino Uno, bringing together infrared flame detection, GSM-based remote alerting, and live Wi-Fi video surveillance into a single, cohesive embedded system. To accurately pinpoint the direction of a fire, the system positions three infrared flame sensors in a 180- arc, giving it a wide and reliable field of detection. Alongside this, an ESP32-CAM module continuously streams live video to a mobile application at approximately 30 frames per second, giving the operator the option to step in and take manual control whenever the situation demands it. A SIM800L GSM module dispatches an SMS notification upon fire suppression. An electromagnetic relay controls a submersible pump for water discharge; at the same time, a dedicated power management subsystem—using an LM7805 linear regulator and DC-DC buck converters—ensures voltage stability across all modules during peak current draw. Across ten controlled trials, the system consistently demonstrated a mean flame detection time of 1.42 ± 0.18 seconds, a suppression time of 4.8 ± 0.6 seconds, and a GSM alert delay of 7.3 ± 1.2 seconds. One notable challenge encountered during testing was electromagnetic interference generated by the pump motor, which initially disrupted GSM communication. This was successfully resolved by isolating the GSM power rail and fitting decoupling capacitors to the motor leads. The system confirms a budget-conscious, dual-mode robotic fire suppression solution that operates either independently or under operator guidance, removing the risk of human exposure to life-threatening environments.
Tiwari et al. (Fri,) studied this question.