Collaborative Operation of Multiple Firefighting Robots Guided by UAVs

Under complex fire scenarios, traditional firefighting methods suffer from limited global perception and weak collaboration capabilities. Therefore, a collaborative operation system with multiple firefighting robots guided by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is proposed. By establishing an air-ground heterogeneous collaborative architecture, the system integrates the global situational awareness of UAVs with the precise operation capabilities of ground firefighting robots, enabling efficient collaborative fire suppression in dynamic fire environments. By fusing prior maps, aerial reconnaissance information, and multi-view observations, a multi-layer fire scene map suitable for firefighting command and control is constructed, ensuring the acquisition of critical information while maintaining mapping efficiency. Combining the water jet trajectory model, multi-view observations, and structural layer data, the trajectory and landing point of the water jet are accurately detected. Furthermore, queue-based and multiform leader-follower formation configurations are designed, and formation reference signals are generated through a fast formation reconfiguration algorithm. Subsequently, a UAV pose-vector controller is developed by using the proposed flexible prescribed performance function, and a formation controller for multiple firefighting robots is designed based on an improved line-of-sight guidance method. Finally, the proposed air-ground multi-agent collaborative control algorithm is validated through simulations and implemented on the KaiCheng RXB-MC80BD firefighting robot platform for practical testing.