Control Architecture Design for a Fire Searching Robot using Task Oriented Design Methodology

Abstract

Recently, there has been an increase in the development of fire searching robots for indoor spaces such as the basements of buildings. This paper presents the control architecture for a fire searching robot using Task Oriented Design (TOD) methodology. TOD is the systematic methodology used to design a system which follows a purpose closely by specifying a target clearly. As indoor spaces are blocked by walls, dangerous fires with smoke, high temperatures, and the possibility of explosions make it difficult for fire fighters to gain access to the fire. For this reason, a fire searching robot is developed in this study. It takes the place of fire fighters by means of an analysis of the properties of the environment of a fire, as well as the tasks demanded by the situation. For a stable operation, the fire searching robot is controlled by remote control. The control system is divided into three parts. The first is the robot controller, the second is a controller for the remote operating device, and the third is a wireless communication system. The appropriate hardware and software was developed for each part of the control system, and the fire search robot was tested in a test environment. The tests validated the performance and usefulness of the proposed control architecture.