GAS on Fire (Guided, Accurate Slurry drops on Fire)

In this Phase II SBIR effort, RoGO will take our existing DropBlock technology and adapt it to support the needs of aerial firefighting applications. DropBlocks are small, portable, lightweight satellite-enabled devices that are a data portal for wildland firefighting crews. Wildland Firefighters operate in cellular-denied areas more than 90% of the time they are deployed on an average wildfire. DropBlocks provide 3 critical functions to Wildland Firefighters: 1) DropBlocks provide GPS tracking of all human & non-human fire resources 2) DropBlocks transmit fire weather data to all firefighters in an incident 3) DropBlocks allow for point-to-point text communications so crews can coordinate and align their tactical efforts at the edge. This proposal suggests adding in key software and hardware functionalities that will allow firefighters with DropBlocks on the ground to coordinate and communicate key firefighting information and efforts with aerial firefighters on their ForeFlight tablet app (or any other tablet flight app) via API integration from a DropBlock in the aircraft, whether rotor-wing or fixed-wing. This proposal suggests we modify our existing DropBlock communication device to: 1) Allow ground firefighters to mark a requested slurry drop starting point and line to drop slurry along (a vector position), and display this information to the pilot. 2) Take in ground wind information, calculate wind drift information given the aircraft’s altitude and suggest a corrected flight line so slurry falls where it is intended, accounting for slurry drift. 3) Most importantly, for ground firefighter safety, we enable ground crews to signal an “All Clear” message up to slurry/water bombing pilots to let them know all firefighters have cleared the line and if it is safe to drop the slurry, or not. Intended use of funding is for engineers’ materials and time building and testing devices in real-world settings with RoGO’s many wildland firefighting contacts.