Public security

FAROS – The Wall Climbing, Flying, Firefighting Drone

Fires in skyscrapers are considered some of the most dangerous, as was depicted in the 1974 American disaster film “Towering Inferno.” To help firefighters, researchers have developed a wall-climbing reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to find the source of the fire and people trapped inside.

Fires in skyscrapers are notoriously difficult to control and extinguish. They spread quickly through the densely populated structures and present unique challenges due to complex, vertical structures. High rise fires are hard to assess particularly because they limit access to the building, cutting off levels from one another.

To this end, researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) developed the Fireproof Aerial RObot System (FAROS), a drone that can detect fires in skyscrapers, examine the inside of buildings and relay the information in real-time to firefighters at the ground station.