Firefighting with a team of drones

Unmanned Firefighting drone.

The Lockheed Martin and Kaman K-Max is a special helicopter. Not only because it’s a so called synchropter; a helicopter with a set of two rotors turning in opposite directions. But also because it was originally designed as a manned version. Since the first unmanned prototype in 2008, this is an autonomous heavy lifting Unmanned Multi-Mission Helicopter. The big advantage of these two rotors is that it can carry a lot. For example 24,000 pounds of water to extinguish a fire.  The K-Max in this video is used for:
• Water drops
• Building a ‘waterline
• Emergency Resupply

Drones working together

What’s so interesting in this video is that there is a cooperation between two unmanned systems, a big and small one. The small one, the Indago VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) looks like a pretty ‘normal’ quadrotor. But with it’s Thermal Camera it’s looking for hotspots (fires). Once identified, it provides data to an operator who directs the unmanned K-MAX to drop water on the fire.