Firefighting Robot System (Water Cannon Robot + Hose Extension Robot, 'Scrum Force')

Japan's first firefighting-robot unit went into service in June 2019 at the Ichihara City Fire Department in Chiba, in a region dense with petrochemical plants. Its four-robot system – nicknamed Scrum Force – came out of a five-year programme of the Fire and Disaster Management Agency (FDMA) worth 1.38 billion yen; Mitsubishi Heavy Industries built the Water Cannon Robot and the Hose Extension Robot, joined by an aerial and a ground reconnaissance robot.

The cannon robot weighs 1.6 t, measures 217 × 146 × 207 cm and drives at 7.2 km/h on a four-wheel-drive chassis with front steering converted from a small buggy. It navigates autonomously to a map position using RTK-GPS, a laser scanner, an IMU and odometry, after which operators remotely aim a 4,000 l/min water or foam stream at 1 MPa and switch the jet pattern; the design is rated for 20 kW/m² of radiant heat.

The hose robot (2.8 t, 240 × 175 × 215 cm) lays up to 300 m of 150A hose weighing about 2 kg/m on its own and locates the cannon robot by sensor. One system operates in Ichihara, with FDMA planning more for industrial zones; pricing is on request, only the development budget being public.

Where the Thermite RS3 is steered by a nearby operator, the Japanese system drives itself into the heat and lets crews stay well back.