The US plans to use unmanned helicopters to fight forest fires

In Maui, firefighting pilots bravely came to the rescue as wildfires sought to destroy the Hawaiian island last month, according to the US press. But these heroes may soon face stiff competition from autonomous helicopters.

Rain, a leader in aerial wildfire containment technology, is committed to fighting fires using unmanned aircraft. On Wednesday, the company announced a partnership with helicopter maker Sikorsky to add Lockheed Martin subsidiary's optionally manned Black Hawk to its arsenal. The partnership promises to provide autonomous, rapid response capabilities for aerial firefighting and reduce firefighting costs.

Rain's innovators will use its Matrix autonomy package and Wildfire mission autonomy system to transmit mission commands to the unmanned Black Hawk. These systems integrate with wildfire early detection networks to dispatch an autonomous helicopter, allowing fires to be extinguished with water within minutes of detection. This is very important given that flames can spread very quickly.

Matrix executes a complete mission plan, taking into account mission objectives and constraints, helicopter performance, obstacles, weather and topography. The system is fully integrated with the flight controls, allowing the aircraft to fly with a high level of autonomy in all environmental conditions,

– said Igor Cherepinsky, director of Sikorsky Innovations.

The autonomous Rain Wildfire Mission system allows fire departments to quickly respond to fires in hard-to-reach areas or rough terrain, increasing their coverage area. The onboard system detects and locates fires in real time, develops an extinguishing strategy, and plans a flight path to ensure the suppressant hits the target—all independently.

Throughout the mission, the system also shares intelligence and plans, providing firefighters with situational awareness and control.

Matrix has already been tested on 10 different helicopters, including a demonstration flight on an unmanned UH-60 Black Hawk last year. The autonomy package is suitable for both rotorcraft and fixed-wing aircraft, as well as existing and new systems.

In simulations, Rhine's engineers found that a network of about 200 rain stations, which serve as the company's hangars and ground control stations and house unmanned helicopters such as the optionally manned Black Hawk, could one day put an end to California's catastrophic wildfires. The company acknowledged that this is an ambitious goal, but hopes to reach this milestone by the end of the decade.

Comments

[rotmistr60]

... these heroes may soon face stiff competition from autonomous helicopters.

As someone who worked as a paratrooper-firefighter for several years, I can say with confidence that no sophisticated (unmanned, piloted) helicopter can compete with a simple paratrooper-firefighter with a shovel, hoe, radar sensor on his back and hose explosives. Everyone has their own tasks and way of performing them. Yes, perhaps they will make the work easier to some extent due to the early detection of a fire that has not yet gained strength and extinguishing it from the air. I don’t know about the United States, but in the 80-90s, an An-2 with a group of parachutists and firefighters on board flew out on patrol, and if a fire was detected, a landing was carried out, followed by extinguishing. This was especially true during the period of dry thunderstorms when the cause of a forest (taiga) fire was lightning.

[Letnab]

You won't believe it! )) we are still flying and extinguishing...
And it’s true that all aviation assets can only be additional extinguishing agents. In the USA, aviation is used as a primary attack to shoot down and stop the movement of fire, although with the use of chemicals the effect is enhanced until the combustion completely stops, but not everywhere. Again, in the same YouTube there are a bunch of videos where, after using aviation to dump water with chemicals, the combustion stops completely, and extinct edges are shown at the site of the spill. And these places are clearly visible due to the use of dye. That is, the clear planned work of aviation and ground forces leads to a positive result. We can’t do that, and I don’t know when we’ll get to the same thing...

[Yaroslav Tekkel]

In the USA, things are traditionally complicated. There is a professional Forest Fire Service within the Ministry of Internal Affairs (which deals not with the police, but with the protection of nature and Indians), and there are various departments of individual states. These depend on local policies and funding. If the state government has stubborn Republicans (the forest is not a bank to be saved with taxpayers’ money) or, God forbid, Democrats (fires happen in nature, there is no need to interfere, it’s better to distribute this money to the homeless, and even better to a commission on the homeless), then everything it will burn out even with unmanned helicopters, even with huge humanoid robots.

[knn54]

Forest fires are best extinguished at night, when the ambient temperature reaches a daily minimum. AT THIS time of day, the risks for people sharply increase, including for MANned firefighting aircraft. And drones don’t care about darkness