MEC 09 - The Wildfire Guardian: A Drone-Mounted Solution to Wildfire Prevention

The Wildfire Guardian is a project that is designed to combat the growing danger that wildfires have on communities around the globe. In order to accomplish this, a drone-mounted fire detection and extinguisher deploying device was designed. The device is controlled using an Arduino Nano ESP32, the arduino will read temperature data from a downward facing thermal camera. When a high temperature is detected in the view of the camera it will receive instruction on which direction to move in order to center the fire in the view of the camera. Once the fire is centered beneath the drone, a signal is sent to an actuator to pull the release pin holding the payload. The water filled payload is dropped and breaks on impact with the ground dispersing the water and dousing the fire.   

When scaled up, this project will be hugely beneficial to the world of firefighting and wildfire prevention. A fleet of drones scanning an area downwind of a wildfire will be able to prevent countless small ember fires from growing into uncontrollable blazes, saving forests, neighborhoods, and lives.