“The Nebraska Intelligent MoBile Unmanned Systems (“Nimbus”) Lab has drone projects for surveying, water sampling, and starting fires. Their Unmanned Aerial System for Firefighting (UAS-FF) is a hexacopter drone fitted with hopper containing up to fifty “ignition spheres” the size of ping-pong balls. The drone injects each sphere with ethylene glycol to start an incendiary reaction before releasing it. Seconds after it hits the ground, the ball bursts into flame and ignites anything in contact. The big challenge was making the apparatus small enough to fit on a rugged portable drone, and then building software for an operator to monitor and control everything from a distance.”
David Hambling |April 27, 2016 | Popular Mechanics
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