Airbus completes first-of-its-kind trial in aerial firefighting



Airbus announced on Thursday that it has completed its first-of-its-kind trial in forest firefighting.
The trial involved linking aircraft, helicopters, drones and ground personnel with communication and data processing systems with the goal of carrying out highly accurate water drops and significantly reducing the time between fire detection and extinguishment. Airbus used a ATR 72 test aircraft, a Cirrus SR20 light aircraft, the Airbus H130 FlightLab helicopter, four drones and three trucks from the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service of Le Gard to collect and process data.
Airbus made a local private mobile network bubble in the area that was connected to Agnet, its communication solution for security and emergency services. The light aircraft and two drones were used to captured images of the fire area and send them to to Airbus servers connected to a command centre aboard a ground vehicle. The images were analysed and merged with data, including data collected by the drone. Data processing systems using AI analysed the tactical situation on the ground and in the air, and created flight paths and water drop points to be transmitted to the helicopter equipped with a precision water drop assistance system and to the ATR72, which was simulating a water bomber.
The tests were done at the Garrigues military camp in Nîmes, France and were based on scenarios developed with Departmental Fire and Rescue Services and the Entente Valabre, a public body empowered by the French Ministry of the Interior to assess forest firefighting equipment. Airbus claims this initial trial is a significant milestone in its efforts to develop a test environment and a comprehensive ecosystem for combating forest fires.
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Airbus firefighting aircraft solutions include the A400M and its firefighting kit, helicopters equipped with water buckets and reconnaissance drones. The company states that additional solutions are being integrated to interconnect and increase the efficiency of coordination between ground and air crews.



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