Coming soon to your repair locker: a sailor-sized fire-fighting robot. Damage control ain't what it used to be.

Meet the Shipboard Autonomous Fire-Fighting Robot, or SAFFiR. This humanoid robot, four years in the making, will one day help you locate and suppress fires.

The robot stands 5-foot, 10-inches and comes in at 140 pounds. It can walk on a variety of terrain while wearing a payload and without special tuning. It easily navigates through hatches and over knee knockers, and can climb stairs with no problem.

"That may sound like a very simple thing to us as humans, but to a robot that is incredibly difficult," said John Seminatore, a graduate researcher in Virginia Tech's Terrestrial Robotics Engineering and Controls laboratory who serves as the student program manager. "Robots are very good at things people are bad at. I can make a robot that is very strong very easily. But it is the simple things that humans do that robots have trouble with."

For example, a robot has no idea what a door is, let alone a watertight hatch. And once identified, many other issues emerge: What kind of door is it? How do you open it? Will it swing in or out when opened?

"The fact that our robot can walk, operate in, and adapt to a changing environment is really a huge step forward," said Seminatore, who also serves as an Air Force Reserve captain.

The team proved this capability in a November demonstration aboard the retired dock landing ship Shadwell, which provides the Navy full-scale damage control research. The robot walked down the passageway, which has been significantly warped from repeated fires. SAFFiR detected the fire, charged a fire hose and attacked.

Such skills are just the beginning, Because it was designed with human characteristics, SAFFiR can pick up and use a standard drill. The next goal is to use a cutting torch to make a hole in the wall.

The robot will not replace damage controlmen, at least not at this point. But it can supplement damage control efforts in many ways — a strong selling point when new ships are designed for minimal manning. Though its temperature tolerance is similar to humans, the robot can stay in a hot environment far longer since it neither dehydrates nor grows tired. Infrared cameras can see through smoke and provide on-scene assessment, and SAFFiR is well suited to assess damage when hazardous contamination, such as radiation, is a concern.

Forthcoming efforts will now focus on artificial intelligence, Seminatore said. Specifically, the ability to respond to voice and gesture commands, as well as sensory feedback that will enable the robot to rightly respond when it runs into or is pushed aside by a human. The next version will also extend battery life from 20 to roughly 90 minutes, and the ability to plug into a standard AC wall outlet.

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