Firefighting drones in China

Chinese AI drone system aims to hit fires in hard-to-reach places before they turn into big blazes

An innovative Chinese AI-driven drone system designed to tackle early-stage fires in high-rise buildings, forests and grassland has gone on show in Beijing.

The groundbreaking technology was showcased by XCMG Group, a leader in China’s machinery industry, at a fire protection, equipment and technology conference and expo in China’s capital last week.

The drone system is mounted on a vehicle – the AP35/G2 UAV compressed air foam tower fire truck – and is the result of collaboration between XCMG Fire-Fighting Safety Equipment Co and the Shanghai office of the Ministry of Emergency Management.

The vehicle is equipped with two fire-rescue drones and a reconnaissance drone, along with storage tanks and firefighting equipment.

The new firefighting drones aim to address slow response times typically associated with urban and forest fire rescues during the initial stages of an emergency.

XCMG Group employees at the expo said the system had undergone two high-rise rescue drills in Chongqing province in southwestern China. It had also been deployed in forest fire prevention and proved efficient at tackling re-ignition points and inaccessible terrain, according to the staff at the event.

For forest deployments, the base system could be integrated into a laptop-sized terminal with a control system equivalent to standard handheld devices.

“When a fire breaks out, the reconnaissance drone is deployed first to survey the scene, transmitting real-time images back to the vehicle’s control room and automatically plotting a safe and swift route for the rescue.

October 23, 2023

Newest AI News

• • Mark Zuckerberg: AI will be built into all of Meta's products. In an interview with The Verge, Zuckerberg said that AI is "the most important technology of our time" and that Meta is "investing heavily in AI to make our products better." He said that AI will be used to improve everything from Meta's social media platforms to its virtual reality products.

  • IBM Research unveils breakthrough analog AI chip for efficient deep learning. IBM Research has unveiled a new analog AI chip that is designed to be more efficient than traditional digital AI chips. The chip is made with a new type of transistor called a memristor, which can store and process data in the same place. This could lead to significant performance and energy efficiency improvements for AI applications.

  • OpenAI deploys web crawler in preparation for GPT-5. OpenAI has deployed a new web crawler that is designed to collect data for the next generation of its large language model, GPT-5. The crawler is designed to collect a wider range of data than the crawlers used to train previous versions of GPT, including more code, scientific papers, and other technical documents. This could lead to a significant improvement in the performance and capabilities of GPT-5.

  • OpenAI introduces fine-tuning for GPT-3.5 Turbo and GPT-4. OpenAI has introduced new fine-tuning capabilities for its GPT-3.5 Turbo and GPT-4 language models. This allows developers to train the models on their own custom datasets, which can lead to improved performance on specific tasks. For example, a developer could fine-tune GPT-3.5 Turbo to generate code for a particular programming language, or to write news articles in a particular style.

  • AI leaders warn about 'risk of extinction' in open letter. A group of AI leaders, including Elon Musk and Bill Gates, have signed an open letter warning about the potential risks of AI. The letter states that AI has the potential to be "the most dangerous technology ever created" and that it is important to develop "international safety standards" for AI.

What did you think of today's email?

Your feedback helps me create better emails for you! 😁

Thank you 💙