Autonomous Embedded System Vehicle Design on Environmental, Mapping and Human Detection Data Acquisition for Firefighting Situations

摘要

When firefighters are at burning sites, they are exposed to a spectrum of hazards. These include extreme temperatures, low visibility, and the presence of harmful air pollutants. Another concern is a foreign building layout and determining the precise location of individuals. For this research, an embedded system design approach that can give firefighters capabilities to remotely monitor and analyze thermal conditions, atmospheric conditions, produce a 2D LiDAR map of individual rooms, and assist in the detection of human presence in the building before proceeding inside. It is proposed an Autonomous Embedded System Vehicle (AESV) design that is equipped with several sensors that provide firefighters outside of the burning site with environmental and topographical information that can assist in planning and time spent on rescue operations. The AESV communicates all sensory data back to a host system in the fire truck where real-time data can be evaluated. This current design is the first prototype of the AESV and integration of all the peripheral devices. The design approach is to develop a multilayered micro controller system to handle the different types of devices, requirements of processing digital and analog inputs, and integration of the communication modules to transmit data back to the host system. Temperature, gas and GPS values have been successfully transmitted through the Xbees as other devices are being integrated to the design.