Robot firefighter shows off sea legs and puts out shipboard flames

The U.S. Navy firefighting robot SAFFiR passed a major test, battling and beating a real fire on a real ship.

Okay, this wasn’t exactly like a scene from Backdraft. The 5'10", 140-pound bipedal robot accomplished the task very, very slowly and with a good assist from the programmers at Virginia Tech not to mention a couple of handlers who were nearby to catch the lumbering bot if it happened to fall over.

Oh, and the robot actually put out the burning chair aboard the decommissioned USS Shadwell back in November 2014. SAFFiR (or Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot) is a joint project of Virginia Tech and the U.S. Office of Naval Research. Read more...

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