Design and Control of the Flame-Retardant Drone Launch Robot

At present, the most common approach employed by humans in combating large-scale forest fires is helicopter water-dropping, which, however, is subject to limitations such as constraints imposed by complex terrain, stringent take-off and landing conditions, demanding water acquisition requirements, and high pilot workload. In response to the limitations inherent in helicopter-based firefighting, this paper proposes a fire suppression strategy utilizing flame-retardant aerial vehicles carrying low-cost, high-efficiency fire extinguishing balls. This strategy involves replacing the helicopter’s water retrieval function with the stable transport of fire extinguishing balls through the use of a specifically designed launcher robot. This paper herein delves into the launcher robot’s structural design and control model, detailing the development of its ejection mechanism, loading mechanism, and triggering mechanism. Furthermore, a flight model for the flame-retardant aerial vehicle is established, endowing the launcher robot with the capability to rapidly deploy small-scale flame-retardant aerial vehicles and autonomously calculate launch angles and velocities, among other features.