Scientists have developed a flying dragon that, contrary to the mythological stereotype, will actually be able to fight fire—by shooting water out of its mouth.
The beast, invented by Japanese researchers, could eventually be recruited to join firefighter teams to extinguish fires that are too large and dangerous for humans to combat.
A video shared by the researchers show how the Dragon Firefighter works. The demonstration shows the "mouth" of the dragon shooting water out at a distance.
"We here present a prototype of a four-meter-long, remotely controllable flying firehose robot, engineered to safely and efficiently extinguish fires in buildings by directly approaching the fire sources," Dr Yuichi Ambe, an assistant professor at Osaka University, said in a press release.
The details of the so-called Dragon Firefighter were published in a study in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI.
The blueprint of the robot has also been published in Open Science, which means other around the world will be able to use them to build one themselves.
The finalization of the blueprint has been a long time coming, as work into the robot began back in 2016. Since then, 11 researchers have contributed to the project.
Researchers also worked closely with Japanese firefighters to understand the type of help they may need when tackling bigger blazes.
This is not the first time the robot has been showcased to the world, however.
The Dragon Firefighter displayed its potential at the World Robot Summit in 2021, where it managed to put out a flame around 4 meters away.
"Since the demonstration at [the World Robot Summit ], we have continued to work on improving our Dragon and have learned many new things," Dr Yu Yamauchi, an assistant professor at Akita Prefectural University and another corresponding author, said in a statement.
"For example, we found that the original passive dampening mechanism which counters oscillations of the Dragon Firefighter's body was impractical: it took too long to prepare for flight. We also found that heat from fires can cause detrimental plastic deformation in outdoor applications of the corrugated tube that holds the water hose and electric cables."
Since its first demonstration, various improvement have been made, including better waterproofing, and improving the nozzle it use to shoot out water.
Despite this, it could be a long time before you see the Dragon Firefighter out in the real world.
"We estimate that it will take approximately 10 more years to deploy our robot in real-world firefighting scenarios," said Ambe. "The primary challenge will be to extend its reach to beyond 10 meters. Developing effective firefighting tactics tailored to this robot's unique capabilities will likewise be a critical aspect of further development."
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