DOHA: Two Qatar University students have created a firefighting robot that can go into burning buildings and rescue people.
The model robot is being developed in an effort to minimise the danger civil defence personnel face while rescuing people from fires, including suffocation of both, the firefighters and the victims.
The model robot can enter a burning building under guidance from firefighters, spraying water to put out the blaze. It is mounted with a specially designed camera with which it can detect fire and start spraying water, the students from the College of Engineering, Computer Department, told Al Sharq.
Wallah Al Makki and her partner Aisha Hassan Al Abdullah, who designed the model robot, said that the robot was still a work in progress and they would be able to develop the real project in future. They said the civil defence directorate had partnered with them in the project and provided them materials and equipment that could withstand fire and spray water with force.
Among the challenges they encountered while designing the robot was finding the right equipment, said Al Makki. “Some of the equipment we got was not of the standard we required,” she said. This delayed their project.
She, however, said that the robot, once it is finally completed, would be the first firefighting robot in Qatar and it would reduce the dangers firefighters face in rescuing people.
Memories of the two firefighters who died in the fire at Villaggio mall that killed 19 people were fresh in their minds when they made the model robot, they said.
She said that for many years many countries had been trying to use robots for firefighting, and to use computers to control blazes in homes and businesses.
Saudi Arabia had manufactured emergency robots and now Qatar would be the first to manufacture a firefighting robot, she said.
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